


In Te Vivere Amem

by 1note



Category: Scanners (1981), The Strain (TV)
Genre: Adult Content, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Season 4 AU, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:08:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 51,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25423648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1note/pseuds/1note
Summary: "You are a strange creature.""Takes one to know one."Only the Face of God can destroy the Master. Only the Voice of God can bind him. Quinlan and Fet's quest to find both weapons leads the Born to something...someone...that he never knew he needed. All he has to do is accept what she can give him. AU Ssn 4. Slight crossing over with the film Scanners.
Relationships: Mr. Quinlan | Quintus Sertorius/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 27





	1. I: A Plan of Action

**Author's Note:**

> This crazy idea came to me a couple of years ago while I was binge watching The Strain and took a break to revisit Cronenberg's Scanners. I ended up writing this story by hand and then just letting it sit for a long time. Now that I've gotten back into writing, I dug this story up to share it with the rest of you.
> 
> For those who aren't familiar with Scanners, it's a kind of sci-fi thriller from the 1970's starring Michael Ironside as the main antagonist. Scanners are telepaths that were created in utero when their pregnant mothers took an experimental drug to help them with their morning sickness. It's loosely based on the whole Thalidomide incident back in the 50's and 60's, except instead of extreme physical deformities in the fetuses, the fictional drug resulted in children born with uncontrollable telepathy.
> 
> Anyway, it occurred to me that someone with that kind of ability might be a real danger to the Master. And so, this story was born.
> 
> Happy reading, everybody. I hope you all enjoy it.

**Asterisks (*) indicate a name or term taken directly from _Scanners_.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of _The Strain_ or _Scanners_.**

_In te vivere amem,_

_tecum paratus sis mori._

_[With you I should love to live,_

_with you be ready to die.]_

— _Horace_

After the first nuke obliterated Liberty Island, it was like the entire world lost its mind. Just for a moment. Just long enough. Leaders panicked, buttons were pushed, missiles flew. And when the radioactive dust clogged the sky, the strigoi emerged. The Master's plan had come to fruition, and now he and his minions would rebuild the world as he saw fit. No more skulking in tunnels like rats. He was the dominant species now.

It had all happened so fast. Vasiliy could barely wrap his head around the fact. All the wars he recalled from history lessons raged for months, years, sometimes generations. This one began and ended in less than a day. _One fucking day._ And no one even knew who was fighting who, or why, or what the hell even set it all off. No one except Vasiliy Fet and the three other people in the room with him.

They were hiding out in an abandoned tenement too run down for even New York's notorious slumlords to bother with. None of them had spoken since they holed up here, each lost in their own brooding thoughts while the masses of strigoi swept through the city.

Fet cast a surreptitious glance towards the hunched form seated in a corner farthest from the rest of the group. Quinlan's face was still streaked with dirt from his earlier mishap in the initial explosion. Fet wondered just how badly the half-muncher was injured in the blast—he should've cracked a few ribs at least—but as usual Quinlan's stoic expression gave nothing away.

Dutch sat on a ratty ottoman a short distance to Fet's left, halfway between him and the Professor. Her arms were wrapped around herself, shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on her scuffed boots. She looked close to tears, but hadn't broken down so far. Vasiliy doubted it would take much to set her off, though. And who the hell would blame her? They'd failed. The Master won. Vasiliy was close to giving in and curling up in the corner in a sobbing mess himself.

Even Setrakian, whose stubborn refusal to give up had put everyone else to shame, seemed to have withered in defeat. The old man sat in a rickety chair directly across the room from Fet, clutching the _Occido Lumen_ to his chest like a security blanket. Fet worried about the Professor; he'd never seen the old man look so frail.

As for Ephraim Goodweather, nobody had seen him since they left Stoneheart. Had he died as a result of the blast? Been taken or turned by the munchers? Was he wandering through the overrun city in search of them? In spite of recent friction between them, Fet truly hoped for the latter. The doc could be an arrogant prick at times, but he was still a valuable fighter. Then again, maybe none of that mattered anymore.

Movement from across the room drew Fet's attention back to Setrakian. The Professor set the _Lumen_ down on his lap and opened the silver cover. As he leafed through the heavy tome, the others roused themselves from their introspection to observe him.

"Professor," Vasiliy spoke in a low voice, "What're you doing?"

"Looking for the answer," was the old man's terse response.

"What's the point?" Dutch muttered, "It's over. We lost."

Setrakian's hard gaze flitted up to pierce the young woman, then returned to the page. "We lost the battle, suffered a terrible blow, but the war is _not_ over. Not while we still breathe."

"He's right," Quinlan's cultured voice startled Vasiliy. It wasn't that he forgot the Born was there, exactly. Just that the half-muncher was so silent and still, he seemed to vanish into the scenery like he was part of the furniture or something.

"The answer lies here," Setrakian tapped the book with a gnarled finger, "Somewhere."

A frustrated Fet gestured to him and Quinlan with a sweep of his arm. "You and the Wormless Wonder looked through that whole book forwards and backwards. What the hell d'you think you'll find in there you haven't already seen?"

It was the Born who replied, "Seeing is not comprehending." He got to his feet, walked over to the Professor. "We have yet to translate the entire text, and much of what we have translated seems to be in riddles."

"The answer _is here_ ," Setrakian tapped the page again more firmly, "We just need to find it."

"Thought the book said only the Face of God could destroy the Master," Fet retorted.

The former pawnbroker's lips compressed to a thin line. "Some of the phrasing mentions the Face of God. But other sentences translate as the Voice of God."

"So, which is it?" Dutch queried.

"And what do they mean?" Fet added, "Face of God. Voice of God. What the hell are they supposed to be? I mean, they can't be literal...can they?"

Quinlan knelt beside Setrakian, his movements slightly stiffer than usual. His pale eyes skimmed over the ancient writing. "The Face of God is sometimes also referred to as the Light of God."

Dutch frowned in thought. "What, like sunlight? We've already tried that."

"Not sunlight." Quinlan looked at her. "Something far more powerful. Something the Master himself used to eliminate the Ancients. To destroy Liberty Island and set in motion this worldwide cataclysm."

The hacker blinked. "A nuke?"

Vasiliy pondered this. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. "Not even the Master's jumbo red worm could survive a nuclear blast."

"But," Dutch sputtered, "Where would we even _find_ a nuke?"

"I remember reading somewhere that there's missile silos scattered all over the Midwest," Fet stated.

Dutch shook her head in dismay. "So, what, you're gonna go wandering the countryside on the slim chance you'll come across a nuclear silo that hasn't launched all its missiles, smuggle a warhead back into New York, and somehow figure out how to set the bloody thing off and, hopefully, fry the Master?"

Vasiliy opened his mouth to respond, but Quinlan beat him to it. "Yes. That is exactly what we'll do."

The young woman huffed a laugh, but one look at the Professor's serious expression wiped the disbelieving grin off her face. "Seriously?"

"Can you think of a better solution?" the old man challenged.

Dutch tried. She really did. But she finally had to concede that an insane plan with little to no chance of success was better than nothing. "Okay," she sighed, "So we worked out what the Face of God might be. What about the Voice?"

Quinlan interjected, "We already have the solution. We find the nuke—"

"No," Setrakian interrupted, sounding distracted as he frowned at a particular page, "I think I understand now. We need both. The Voice to hold the Master in its sway, and the Face to destroy him."

"You sure about that?" Fet asked.

The old man nodded. "I am almost certain of it. That is why the _Lumen_ mentions both. We _need_ both in order to defeat the Master once and for all."

The Born pursed his bloodless lips. "You say the Voice of God is powerful enough to control the Master. What could possibly do that?"

Setrakian replied, "There are several images that are repeated throughout the _Lumen_. This one," he pointed down at the book, "I believe refers to the Voice of God."

Dutch and Fet rose from their seats to join Quinlan at the Professor's side. They all gazed at the illustration Setrakian indicated. It depicted a row of simply drawn faces, each with a different expression—sadness, laughter, fear, rage. Lines ran down from the individual faces to converge on a single, larger face below. Somehow, that face was drawn to look both agonized and serene.

While Fet and Quinlan puzzled over the image, Dutch's eyes widened a little. "This is gonna sound mad, but...you guys ever see that sculpture?"

Vasiliy frowned, "Sculpture?"

" _Tumult_ by Benjamin Pierce. ***** " She pointed at the illustration. "It looks a lot like this picture."

"I didn't realize you had an appreciation for art, Ms. Velders," Setrakian remarked.

The hacker smirked. "I don't, really. But Benjamin Pierce was different."

"How so?"

"He was a Scanner."

Fet's mouth fell open. "Shit, you're right. I remember hearing something about that."

"Scanners are supposedly telepathic, are they not?" Quinlan asked.

"No supposedly about it," Dutch replied, "I was obsessed about them when I was a teen. Looked up everything I could find on them."

In the 1950's, a new drug was introduced for the purpose of easing severe morning sickness in pregnant women. It was called Ephemerol ***** , and it was so popular that even women with only mild symptoms used it. It wasn't until after their children were born that a terrible side-effect was discovered. The children were unstable, prone to fits of violence, screaming at voices only they could hear. Doctors thought it was some kind of juvenile schizophrenia, until some of the kids started attacking people. Not physically, but in their minds. It was terrifying to witness, even worse to experience. Healthy people collapsing in what appeared to be epileptic fits, bodies convulsing, noses bleeding. Forced to do horrible things to themselves and others. Many victims died of strokes or heart attacks. Some committed suicide or went mad.

Many of the affected children—now known as Scanners—died or went insane as well. It seemed the only way to keep them and the public safe was to isolate and keep them in a drug-induced stupor. Until, that is, the parents of a Scanner discovered that the mother's leftover Ephemerol blocked the child's telepathic powers. The drug that made them different was now used to make them normal. Temporarily, at least.

"I used to be so jealous," Dutch mused, "I read that they could even connect their minds to computers."

"Every hacker's dream," Vasiliy grinned.

Quinlan nodded in thought. "Such a person would be a threat to the Master. He controls his spawn by a telepathic network. A powerful enough Scanner could cause a great deal of chaos among his ranks. Perhaps even harm the Master himself."

"Finding a nuke's gonna be tricky enough," Fet pointed out, "But how the hell are we gonna find a Scanner?"

Again, Dutch had the answer, "Ephemerol's manufactured and distributed by ConSec *****. They have a corporate office here in New York."

Setrakian nodded approval. "They are certain to have records of where they distribute this drug. Perhaps even the names of individual patients, since their condition is so rare."

"Shouldn't be too hard to break in and find these records, given the state of things." The hacker's eyes glowed with eagerness.

"So we got us a plan of action," Fet declared with renewed optimism, "Find and recruit a Scanner to disable the Master, and a nuke to destroy him."

"As plans go, we have a slim chance of success," Quinlan stood, decisive, "But perhaps it is the best chance we have."

"I am in no condition to go traipsing through the countryside on this search," the Professor said, "I shall stay here and continue to research the _Lumen_."

"By yourself?" Vasiliy frowned in concern.

"I'll stay with him," Dutch volunteered.

The exterminator turned to the half-strigoi. "Looks like it's you and me, Born-o."

Quinlan offered no response beyond a terse nod.


	2. II. Laura

_6 months later..._

As it turned out, finding a Scanner proved just as difficult as finding a nuclear missile silo. One might even be tempted to use the word impossible. Even with the list of names and addresses obtained from ConSec, the telepaths remained frustratingly elusive. Part of the problem was that a lot of the smaller towns where so many of the Scanners preferred to live were emptied out by the strigoi, the residents moved to cities to better keep track of them. But a lot of Scanners chose to live on their own in the middle of no-frickin'-where, the harder to find, the better. And if Fet and Quinlan did manage to track down one of these lonely homes, they were always long abandoned.

"It's like these people are in witness protection or somethin'," Vasiliy griped one day as they drove their little convoy away from yet another fruitless search.

"Or perhaps the Master knows the threat that they pose and is eliminating them," Quinlan suggested. He rode in the passenger seat of the van Fet drove, while Charlotte sat in the back consulting an old road atlas. They met Charlotte on the road the first week they arrived in North Dakota. Her familiarity with the area, sharp wits, and aptitude for hunting made her a useful ally. She was also good with people, which came in handy when they encountered a crew of wandering survivalists. With Charlotte's mediation, Fet and Quinlan worked out a deal with the group's leader, Ben. Safety in numbers in return for improved trade and salvage.

And so it went, traveling the wilderness, finding small groups of other survivors willing to trade information and goods, and taking out others who chose a more violent path. And though Ben's group was satisfied with how things were going, Fet and the Born were becoming ever more frustrated by the lack of any results. Well, Fet was frustrated. Quinlan was, as usual, the embodiment of stoicism.

"List's gotta be runnin' pretty low by now," Vasiliy muttered.

Quinlan consulted the wrinkled printout. "Only three names remain. James Fenton, Laura Alder, and Martin Hammelschmidt. Apparently, they all reside within twenty miles of each other."

"That's convenient."

They tried James Fenton's address first; another modest cabin located just beyond civilization. Another dead end. Not only was Fenton gone, but it looked like his place had been looted more than once. Nothing left but broken furniture and cobwebs.

Next, they went to Laura Alder's home. She'd actually lived in a small town of just over a thousand people, according to the sign that welcomed the convoy. Now there was no one. Not only had the strigs removed the entire population, but a fire had broken out at some point and destroyed half the buildings. There was still plenty to scavenge, which made the survivalists happy, at least.

With evening setting in, the group opted to set up camp for the night. They chose a clearing a few miles from the town to avoid possible sweep teams.

"I'll get the firewood," Fet declared and started for the woods.

"You sure?" Charlotte called after him, "You got it last time."

Fet waved a dismissive hand. "Yeah, fine. Need to stretch my legs."

"I'll go with him," Quinlan said before Charlotte could volunteer. Mildly surprised, she nodded and watched the half-strigoi follow after Vasiliy.

"Finally decided to start pulling your own weight, Born-o?" Fet quipped.

"It is unwise to go into the wilderness alone." Typical seriousness from the Born.

Fet shrugged, "Charlotte could've come with me."

Quinlan's lips thinned. Fet and the woman had been spending too much time together, in his opinion. The ratcatcher had a tendency to form attachments easily, and in the war against the Master, such attachments were a liability. Quinlan knew this from personal experience.

"Well, since you're here," Fet picked up a bundle of fallen branches and pretty much dropped them into Quinlan's arms, "you can do the heavy lifting."

Quinlan narrowed his eyes.

The two men trudged through the snow and collected enough wood for both of them to carry. As they headed back to camp, Quinlan paused, his pale gaze drawn somewhere to their left.

"What is it?" Fet asked.

"I hear something." Quinlan set his armload of wood on the ground and headed for a slight rise about twenty yards away.

"What—Quinlan!" Fet called after him. When the Born didn't respond, he huffed in exasperation, set his own load of firewood down, and followed. "Y'know," he said once he caught up, "Somebody mentioned it's not wise to go into the wilderness alone."

"Not for humans," Quinlan retorted.

As they neared the top of the rise, they crouched in the snow and cautiously peered over the crest. What they saw made both their eyes widen in astonishment. A pack of feral dogs had just taken down a deer. Probably what Quinlan heard a moment ago. But that wasn't what surprised them; what surprised them was the sight of a woman approaching the pack. Her steps were measured, but not slow, as if she had nothing to worry about.

"What the hell is she doing?" Fet started to rise and reach for the gun at his belt, but a hand on his shoulder stayed him.

"Wait."

"For what? She's gonna get ripped to pieces!"

Quinlan pointed, "Look."

Vasiliy looked...and damn near had his beard sweep the ground, his jaw dropped so low. The dogs were all sitting calmly while the woman knelt by their kill. She used a hunting knife to carve a generous portion for herself and stuffed the meat into a gallon-sized Ziplock bag. Then she sealed the bag, stood, and walked away. As soon as she was out of sight, the dogs returned to their meal as if they were never interrupted.

"Shit," Vasiliy breathed. He turned to his companion. "You don't think maybe those dogs knew her?"

They both knew how unlikely that was. Their group ran into more than a few feral packs over the past six months, all of them as vicious and deadly as if they'd never once been beloved family pets. That woman should have been a chewed mess.

"We need to catch up to her." Quinlan led Fet around the clearing to where they saw the woman go. Both took care to stay out of view from the dog pack until they reached the relative safety of the trees. They followed her tracks in the snow and soon caught up to her.

"You'd better hang back," Fet advised the Born, then stepped into the open, empty hands in plain sight.

The woman spun to face him before he even made a sound. Alarmed, she backed away from him.

"Whoa, easy," Fet held up his hands, "I'm not gonna hurt you."

"What do you want?" The woman clutched her bag of meat to her chest. She was pretty, in a normal, approachable way. Early to mid-thirties, brown wavy hair that just reached her shoulders, gray eyes, a mole on the left side of her upper lip near the corner of her mouth. She wore a red and black striped toboggan hat, purple gloves, and a dark blue peacoat. Her boot cuffs appeared to be hand-knitted with matching teddybear faces peeking over the tops of her boots. Vasiliy never would have guessed there was anything strange about her.

"I just wanna talk," he assured her, "My name's Vasiliy Fet. I'm from New York."

Her gaze moved past him to the trees. "Someone's out there."

Fet was surprised. In his experience, people only saw the Born when he wanted to be seen. But if this woman really was a Scanner, maybe she sensed him.

"He's a friend of mine. He won't hurt you."

"Then why is he hiding?" The woman glared in suspicion.

This was not going the way Vasiliy hoped. Then again, he _was_ just winging it. Maybe she'd respond better if they were more up front with her.

"Okay, I'm gonna call him over. But, uh, just to warn you," Fet grimaced slightly, "He kinda looks—"

A faint gasp escaped her. Her startled gaze was fixed on something behind him. Fet rolled his eyes. "I was trying to brace her before she saw you, Born-o."

He glanced back to see Quinlan standing in the open, hood thrown back, his strigoi features plain to see. This was a bit more up front than Fet had in mind.

To both men's astonishment, the woman didn't scream or run or do any of the expected reactions when confronted with the sight of the Born. Instead, she walked right up to him, and then she did something that damn near made Vasiliy's brain short-circuit. She smiled.

Quinlan regarded the woman before him with bemusement, though his expression remained neutral. He was used to fear, mistrust, even revulsion. But gazing down at her, all he saw in the woman's expression was...wonder.

"Hi," she breathed, eyes alight.

Quinlan tilted his head. "Hello."

"I'm Laura."

"I am pleased to meet you, Laura," he stated in his solemn voice, "My name is Quinlan."

_Quinlan._ He saw her mouth each syllable as if testing their flavor.

Fet's voice jarred them out of the moment, "Laura? As in Laura Alder?"

Her smile faded. She took a step back. "How do you know my name?"

"We've been searching for you," Quinlan answered, "Or someone like you."

"Someone like me," she echoed, guarded.

Fet interjected, "Look, this is gonna sound crazy, but me and Quinlan, we're on a mission to destroy the Master. We have a plan," a slight exaggeration, "and it involves two things we've spent the last six months traipsing through the country searching for. On of those things is a Scanner. We got a list of Ephemerol prescriptions from the ConSec building back in New York. You're one of the last names on that list and the only Scanner we managed to find."

As Fet related their story, the tension began to ease from Laura's shoulders. Though still wary, she no longer looked as if she might bolt. That was progress.

"You're not the only ones with that list," she said.

The two men exchanged a knowing look. "We should have anticipated this," Quinlan murmured, "The Master must have realized that Scanners could pose a threat and acted accordingly."

Laura's next words confirmed this, "When the strigoi came to relocate everyone to another town, the collaborators they brought with them started asking about me. I didn't know why, but I wasn't gonna stick around to find out."

"Did you know James Fenton or Martin Hammelschmidt?" Fet inquired, "They lived pretty close to you."

Laura nodded. Sadness crept into her eyes. "Yeah. We were in a sort of unofficial support group."

"Do you know where they are? What happened to them?"

"They're dead."

"You're certain of this?" Quinlan asked.

Laura sniffed. "I saw them a few months ago. They were in a sweep team checking the empty towns for stragglers.

Vasiliy winced in sympathy. "They were turned."

"They were killed," Laura bit out the words, "Those _things_ weren't them." She met the exterminator's sympathetic gaze. "You said you're gonna try to destroy the Master."

He nodded. "But we're gonna need your help to do it."

She stared at him for several beats, long enough for Fet to wonder if she was reading his thoughts at that very moment. Not exactly something he was comfortable with, but at least she would know he was telling the truth. Laura then turned her attention to Quinlan, who met her assessing gaze coolly.

"Is it just you two?" she suddenly asked.

Quinlan was the one who answered, "We are traveling with a group of survivors."

"How many?"

"Seven, including Mr. Fet and myself."

Laura considered this, then gave a slight nod. "Okay."

Vasiliy brightened. "You'll come with us?"

"Yeah. But there's some things I need to get first."

"Fine! Great!" he agreed all too happily. He gestured ahead with a sweep of his arm. "Lead the way."

Fet and the Born followed their newest ally to her shelter. It was an old hunting blind set up high in a tree. Laura surprised Quinlan when she handed him the bag of venison.

"Back in a minute," she smiled and climbed up the ladder to the treehouse. A few minutes later she descended with a loaded pack and rolled up sleeping bag on her back. She hopped down from the last couple of rungs, accepted the meat back from the Born with a nod of thanks. "Okay, let's go."

On their way back to the campsite, Fet and Quinlan paused to retrieve the firewood they'd collected earlier. The weak, cloud-obscured sun hung low in the sky so that when the parked vehicles and pitched tents came into view, they were little more than hulking silhouettes.

Laura stopped, her brow furrowed. She swayed a little like she was hit with a sudden burst of dizziness.

"You alright?" Fet asked, concerned.

"Just give me a sec." Laura took a breath and visibly collected herself. "Haven't been around people for a while," she explained, "It's a little...overwhelming."

"You're hearing them right now?" Fet queried.

She nodded, "Half a dozen voices chattering away in my head. Loads of fun."

"How well can you endure it?" Quinlan asked her.

"It's a small group. I can deal with it." She sounded confident enough to reassure the two men. The trio continued into the camp.

They'd decided during the walk back not to tell Ben's people that Laura was a Scanner. Fet and Quinlan and explained their arrangement with the survivalists to her. Even with the benefits of a half-strigoi on their side, they barely tolerated Quinlan's presence. A telepath in their midst would doubtless be too much to ask of them. Even without knowing what she was, the presence of a newcomer caused quite a few grumbles. At least until Laura shared her bag of venison.

As usual, Ben and his crew kept to their own fire, which gave Fet a chance to bring Charlotte up to speed. It didn't take long for Laura to decide that she liked the other woman. She was tough, no-nonsense, but also compassionate. The kindness she showed towards even the standoffish Quinlan wasn't an act. Laura would have known. Charlotte wasn't even all that freaked out when she was told that Laura was a Scanner.

"So, our luck's finally turning," she smiled and lightly bumped shoulders with Fet.

The burly Ukranian grinned at her. "Yep. Scratch one item off the list. We're halfway there."

Laura spoke up, "You still haven't told me what the other thing you're looking for is."

A broad smile divided Fet's full beard. "A thermonuclear warhead."

A startled laugh escaped her. "No shit?"

Quinlan replied solemnly, "It is the only way to ensure the Master is completely destroyed."

"I hope so," Laura half-joked, "I'd hate to imagine something that could survive an A-bomb."

"It'll work," Vasiliy refused to consider failure, "We just have to find one."


	3. III. Answers and Questions

Before the Illumination, Charlotte worked as a nurse in a country clinic and also participated in numerous blood drives for the Red Cross. This made her quite adept at drawing blood from members of the group for Quinlan's consumption. It wasn't nearly enough to satisfy the Born's needs, but it kept him going until those times they ran into unfriendly strangers and he could drink his fill from them. Having Laura join the group meant another pint was added to his meager diet.

It was a struggle for Quinlan not to hover as he witnessed Charlotte inserting the needle into Laura's arm. The group's convoy was parked by an abandoned gas station, a pause to stretch legs, scavenge, and consult the road map for a possible destination. Laura was seated on the tailgate of one of the pickups very deliberately _not_ watching as her blood dripped into the mason jar repurposed for the occasion. Her gaze instead went to where Quinlan stood a few paces from the vehicles. When their eyes met, she smiled at him. Quinlan looked away.

Two weeks had passed since the Scanner joined in the quest, and Quinlan had yet to figure her out. She didn't fear him, nor did she look on him in disgust or perverse fascination; all the reactions the Born came to know and expect after many centuries of interactions with humans. What he saw in Laura's eyes from the moment they first met was something else entirely. He didn't know what it was, or how to inure himself to it, and it unsettled him as a result.

Quinlan absently slipped a hand into his hip pocket and exhaled in annoyance when his fingers encountered nothing but the pocket's lining. He only had one vice, one tiny indulgence which he allowed himself. No one knew of it. He never spoke of it. And for the past six months he'd had to do without. It was maddening, especially since it might have distracted him from the continual hunger.

"Quinlan."

Speaking of distracted, he hadn't even noticed Charlotte's approach. He silently chastised himself for his carelessness.

Charlotte offered him the now filled jar. "Your blood."

"Thank you." Quinlan accepted the jar, then walked away to find some privacy. Once he found a spot behind a derelict SUV, he unscrewed the jar's lid with faintly trembling hands and plunged his stinger into the still warm contents. The blood was gone in seconds, little more than a snack for him. Quinlan sighed as he replaced the lid.

Moments later, the group began to regather in anticipation for the next leg of their journey. Quinlan saw Laura hurry out of the gas station's shop before she climbed into the panel van with him, Fet, and Charlotte. Quinlan wondered what she thought she might find in there; the place had obviously been picked over multiple times.

Once the van's door shut, Fet put the vehicle in drive and they rolled out. Charlotte was up in the front with Vasiliy, which meant Quinlan was seated next to Laura. He found himself wishing for a window to stare out of. It wasn't that Laura tried to converse with him; she always seemed to know when the Born had no patience for that sort of thing. He just needed some way to avoid making eye contact with her again. It was pathetic how a mere human had the power to unnerve him to this extent. The fact that he could smell her blood—the blood he'd tasted only moments ago—certainly didn't help matters. His stinger rattled in his throat.

Laura hugged herself, gloved hands tucked under her armpits. She'd always been sensitive to the cold, which made this nuclear winter especially hellish for her. She could feel the heat radiating off the half-strigoi and wondered how he'd react if she scooted a bit closer to him. Her mouth twitched in amusement, imagining herself snuggling up to Quinlan and his horrified expression as a result.

The van lurched to a sudden halt. Laura jerked against her seat belt, while Quinlan put a bracing hand against the back of Fet's seat.

"What the hell?" Vasiliy blurted.

Laura peered over Charlotte's shoulder to get a look through the windshield and saw something lying across the road. It looked like a body. She didn't need telepathy to figure out what everybody was thinking; this might be a trap.

_"What's the hold up?"_ Ben's voice emanated from the CB radio.

Fet grabbed the receiver, pressed the button on the side. "We got what looks like a body on the ro—"

Gunfire erupted from nowhere. Several new holes punched through the van's sides, luckily missing its passengers. There were startled yelps, curses, ducked heads. Meanwhile, at least a dozen armed figures emerged from the tall, dead grass of the fields to either side, while the "body" leapt to its feet and pointed a handgun at the windshield. "Hands where I can see 'em!" the man bellowed.

"Goddamn it," Fet snarled. He and Charlotte raised their hands in full view of the bandits. Judging from the lack of gunfire from the other vehicles, the whole convoy was surrounded before Ben and his crew could react.

Laura's brain was assaulted by the numerous thoughts of their attackers. Loud and chaotic, a mass of voices all shouting at full volume in her head, impossible to blot out. She thrashed in her seat, the seat belt the only thing keeping her from sliding onto the floor. She didn't feel the strong hands that grasped her shoulders, but she heard Quinlan's voice—his beautiful, soulful voice—in hear ears and in her mind.

_**"Be still."** _

Somehow, she was able to focus only on him. Her thrashing slowed, stopped, but her muscles remained tense. That awful din still raged in her head, beat against her sanity, but she was holding onto herself for now. Her eyes focused on Quinlan. He was closer to her than he had been since they first met. His hands still gripped her shoulders, but it was the intense stare of his pale eyes that steadied her.

Laura released a shuddering breath, "I'm okay."

"Well, that's good," a somewhat unnerved Fet responded, "'Cause something tells me there's about to be a lot more shooting goin' on."

Two of the bandits opened the driver and passenger doors and ordered Fet and Charlotte to get out.

"Stay behind me," Quinlan murmured to Laura as he turned to face the van's side door, uzis drawn. Laura hastily unfastened her belt and slid down into the footwell.

The sliding door rolled open and the unlucky bandit was knocked back by twin bursts from Quinlan's weapons. Before the rest of the gang could react, the Born was among them, so fast he was just a blur. Fet and Charlotte took advantage of the chaos to join in the fight. And judging from the increased gunfire, so did Ben's crew. Screams and bloodshed filled the air. Panicked thoughts bombarded Laura's harried mind. It wasn't long before the remaining bandits fled.

Laura sighed in relief as their terrified babbling faded with distance. She cautiously rose from her crouch and stepped out of the van.

"You okay, Laura?" Charlotte called out. She and Vasiliy were apparently looting weapons from the dead. One could never have too many guns in the apocalypse.

"Yeah, fine," Laura managed to keep her voice steady. She wandered over to where Quinlan knelt beside one of the fallen bandits. It looked like he was examining the man for some reason, until Laura got closer, circled around, and saw what was really happening. The fatally wounded man was unconscious, which was fortunate, since Quinlan was feeding on him. Laura's eyes were riveted to the stinger latched onto the bandit's neck. Her gaze followed its pulsating length to where it emerged from the dark pit of the Born's mouth, then traveled down to the swirls at his throat, now flushed a deep red.

Quinlan withdrew his stinger and rose from his crouch. The man he fed from lay at his feet, dead and drained. It had been weeks since he felt this sated. The only thing to detract from the moment was the fact that Laura had witnessed his feeding. The rest of the group knew to keep their distance when he fed. Quinlan had enough of being gawked at since Ancharia freed him from the carnival all those centuries ago. He turned to face the woman, expecting the usual revulsion. What he saw instead was something akin to curiosity, mixed with a small amount of embarrassment.

"Um, sorry for..." She gestured towards him and the body, then seemed to shake herself. "Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for helping me while I was...y'know...freaking out."

Quinlan's inscrutable pale eyes regarded the anxious Scanner. His head tilted slightly. "You were overwhelmed."

"Yeah." She shuffled her feet. "It's been a long while since I was around that many people. I sorta forgot how to deal with it all."

He couldn't deny that he was curious. Quinlan knew almost nothing about Laura's condition. How it affected her. How much control she truly had. Or even what she was capable of. Unfortunately, now was not the time to learn. Fet was already calling out to them; the convoy was about to resume their journey.

Laura smiled, shrugged, and headed for the van. Quinlan stared after her a moment longer before he followed.

* * *

Late that evening, after the group made camp, Laura sought him out again. As usual, Quinlan volunteered to stand guard for the night. He required very little sleep and he enjoyed the chance for solitude these late hours provided. So it came as rather a surprise that, when Laura approached, he felt not a hint of annoyance at the intrusion. Perhaps his continued curiosity about the Scanner had something to do with it.

The woman shivered in the cold, despite the layers she wore. "C-Can I get closer to you? It's freezing out here and you're really warm."

Quinlan might have pointed out that the campfire some distance behind them was also warm, but he merely nodded instead. Laura stepped closer until their shoulders were not quite touching. The two of them stood in silence for a while, gazing out into the black shadows of the forest. Quinlan would have been content to remain this way and leave his questions unvoiced. As it turned out, however, he didn't need to voice them.

"It's not what people think," she murmured, "I can't control what I hear. I can't block it out or ignore it. It's all right here," she touched the side of her head. "Things people know they're thinking. Things people _don't_ know they're thinking. All those worries and running commentaries and subconscious mutterings that everybody has, but only ever have to deal with their own. It's like I'm stuck in a room where everybody's constantly talking to themselves at full volume, and all of 'em are deaf to each other, but I can hear them all. And the more people I'm around, the louder it gets," her voice quavered, "Till there's no room left for me. There's just the noise."

Little wonder, then, that the first generation of Scanners was known for madness.

"The drug which caused your condition," Quinlan began.

"Ephemerol."

He nodded, "It is the only thing that can quell your telepathy?"

Laura smirked and reached into her hip pocket, withdrew a prescription bottle that rattled faintly. "Five pills," she shook the bottle for emphasis, "Enough for two and a half days. I was gonna get the prescription refilled, but wouldn't you know it, the world went and nuked itself." She returned the bottle to her pocket. "I dunno where I can find any more, since it always had to be special ordered."

Since she was talking freely about her strange ability, Quinlan decided to give in to his curiosity and ask his questions.

"When Fet and I first saw you, you seemed to be controlling that pack of feral dogs."

Laura nodded. "Yeah, animal minds are less complicated than humans. Doesn't take much effort to scan them."

Quinlan deduced that "scanning" meant actively going into another's mind, to root out specific thoughts or even control those thoughts, as opposed to the passive "listening" she usually did. "Are you able to control humans as well?"

She chewed her lip for a moment. "I never tried, but I read about others, the ones who went bad. They made people hurt or kill themselves, or each other. Made people see things. Forced them to dredge up the ugliest desires from their subconscious to drive them insane..."

Quinlan pondered this information. If Laura was even half so powerful, it was little wonder the Master viewed her kind as a threat. "Are you able to read strigoi thoughts as well?"

"Yeah, but," she shuddered, "something about them really grates on me. Like a staticky feedback kind of screech." Laura wrinkled her nose, then she turned to look at the Born and smiled. "That's why I knew you weren't one of them."

Quinlan shifted his position to face her directly. "My thoughts sound human, then?" he queried, head cocked.

Laura's smile broadened. It made her look almost childlike. "No, your voice, it's...quieter. But also stronger. Sometimes it even...it doesn't block other people's thoughts, exactly," her brow knitted as she struggled for the right words, "It sort of overlaps the others. Makes the noise more bearable. It's...nice."

Quinlan regarded the smiling woman for a long moment. His colorless stare didn't seem to unnerve her at all, which only made her more of a puzzle to him. "You are a strange creature," he murmured.

Laura laughed. "Takes one to know one," she quipped, then winked, much to the Born's dismay. She turned away and started back to camp, only to abruptly pause. "Oh! Almost forgot," she searched her coat pockets for something. "Back at that gas station, I, uh, I picked up a thought of yours. Just, like, overheard it," she explained, "Anyway, I went scrounging through the gas station's shop to see if the looters missed anything."

Laura grinned in excitement and tossed something at Quinlan. He caught the small item easily.

"I found that hiding under a shelf," she told him, "It's probably a little stale, but, uh..." Laura fidgeted, nervous and a tad bashful all of a sudden. "Anyway, hope you like Juicy Fruit." She hurried away before Quinlan could think of a response.

He stared at the unopened packet of chewing gum in his hand. His only indulgence. Perhaps Quinlan should have been irritated by the fact that the Scanner had managed to pluck such a personal secret from his thoughts, yet he found himself far more disconcerted by her actions. People didn't just give him things unless they expected something in return. But what could she hope to gain from a mere pack of gum? Was it a ploy to ingratiate herself to him?

Scowling, Quinlan shoved the pack of gum into his coat pocket. It vexed him the way each interaction with the woman only left him flustered and with more questions about her than before, even though she was quite open when telling him of herself. It made no sense. Aside from her remarkable condition, there was nothing special about her. Laura was just an ordinary human woman who, for some reason, treated him as if he were an ordinary man.

_And there it is,_ he mused. The true reason she confused him so. For all his long life, Quinlan was always reminded that he was different. Not human, not strigoi, treated with suspicion, disgust, and contempt. He wouldn't go so far as to say these reactions didn't bother him, but they were familiar. Laura's treatment of him should not have been any different, especially after she saw him feed. And yet...

He sighed. This was getting him nowhere. He needed to focus on the mission. Find the nuke, get it back to New York, and destroy his hated father once and for all. Puzzling over Laura's behavior was an unnecessary distraction. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered, except killing the Master.

Quinlan's resolve lasted for less than a week.


	4. IV. Bad Ideas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter should tide you all over until Monday. Have a great weekend!

Laura's head hurt. Quinlan had been oh-so-subtly avoiding her for the past few days, taking his soothing thought-voice with him, and Laura's head hurt. The noise from the rest of the group was relentless. Half a dozen people's minds, chattering, muttering, babbling, bellowing. Laura said she could handle it, but _damn_ did she need a break! Time was she'd simply pop an Ephemerol pill, but with her last refill running low, that wasn't an option. She needed to save the few pills she had left for when Fet and Quinlan finally took her to New York. The city's population might have been greatly reduced since Illumination Day, but that was still a lot of people. Which left her with Option Two in dealing with a crowded brain: distance.

The group had found an abandoned farmhouse with an actual root cellar that still held some home canned goods. While everyone else was busy scrounging, Laura went for a stroll. She wandered over to the old barn to see what it might hold. Unlike the farmhouse, the barn looked like it hadn't been used in decades. The structure was rundown, boards warped with age, shingles missing from the roof. Laura guessed the only creatures housed in that barn were rodents.

The main doors were meant to slide open on rollers, but years of neglect had rusted them shut. Laura yanked on one of the doors until it screeched open just wide enough for her to squeeze through. The interior smelled of moldy hay. Laura sneezed, waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The first thing she noticed was the hulking form of a long forgotten tractor. Behind it lay a pile of disused lumber and old farming tools. Laura examined these items in case any might prove useful before deciding there was nothing worth taking. She walked further in and found a wooden ladder leading up to the hayloft.

"Climbing up there's probably a bad idea," she muttered to herself. The old barn creaked around her as if in agreement. She should probably head back to rejoin the others. If they weren't already done with their scavenging, they would be soon, and none of them would appreciate having to wait for her.

Something tickled the back of her mind. Animal thoughts. Not rodent—they being strangely absent—but something predatory. And, of course, whatever it was had taken up residence in the hayloft. Laura stared up at the rickety ladder, glanced back at the open door.

"A couple of minutes won't hurt."

Decision made, she stepped onto the first rung. She paused a moment to be sure it would hold her weight before she continued to the next, and the next. Aside from a few creaks, the ladder seemed sturdy enough. When she reached the top, Laura cautiously peered over the edge of the loft. What she saw brought a smile to her face.

A barred owl stared back at her from its nest in the hayloft's most sheltered corner. Since the bird didn't rise from its crouch, Laura guessed it was busy warming a few eggs. That meant the owl and her mate were able to find enough to eat for them to reproduce. That was a nice little spark of hope to stumble onto.

"Congratulations."

The bird's wary gaze stayed on her. No need to stress the poor thing. Laura started to descend.

A loud crack was her only warning before Laura felt the ladder sway dangerously. She let out a yelp and managed to grab the edge of the loft as the ladder fell out from under her.

"Oh, shit...oh, shit..."

She dangled from her precarious grip for a panicked moment. When she felt her gloved fingers begin to slip, she kicked a leg up and managed to hook it over the edge. Even with this added security, it was a struggle to pull herself up. Laura was positive that she was about to fall and break her neck right up until the moment she rolled safely onto the platform. She lay on her back, panting in relief.

"Okay," she huffed, "That was pretty stupid."

A stab of anxiety drew her attention back to the owl, who was definitely not happy to have an intruder in her loft. Laura scanned the bird's mind and told it not to see her as a threat. The owl calmed and began to preen itself. If only scanning humans was so gentle.

Laura stood with a grunt of effort, walked to the single large window that looked out onto the barnyard. If she leaned out a ways, she could see the house to her left. The group's vehicles were still parked around it, but no signs of anyone. Were they all still inside, or just concealed by the vehicles?

"Hello!" Laura shouted, "Guys? Need some help over here!"

Nothing. She heaved a sigh. "Now what?"

* * *

As it turned out, the farmhouse held a lot more than just jars of preserves and pickled vegetables. There was warm clothing that fit most of the guys, several cans of Sterno, a hunting rifle Charlotte immediately called dibs on, and even several bottles of top shelf whiskey stashed in a kitchen cupboard. It seemed the place had never been looted before.

While the others loaded up their treasures, Quinlan found something even more valuable housed within an antique sideboard in the dining area: a complete set of genuine silverware. No doubt a family heirloom of the original residents. The set was old, but well cared for, without a hint of tarnish. Melted down, it would provide much needed ammunition against any strigoi they might encounter. Quinlan placed the entire set into a duffel bag, slung it over his shoulder. On his way out the front door he paused, watched Fet and Charlotte, Ben and the other survivalists finish loading their newly acquired goods onto the trucks. The Born frowned. "Where is Laura?"

Charlotte, on her way back inside for another box of canned food, nodded in the direction of the barn. "Saw her going that way."

"And you let her go alone?" Quinlan's frown deepened.

"Hey, relax, Born-o," Vasiliy shut the panel van's rear doors, "We already cleared the place. She'll be fine. Probably just needed a break from your sunny disposition." The slapped the Born's shoulder in passing.

Quinlan was not at all reassured. "We cannot assume there is any safety in this world," he declared. He stowed the silver in the van, then marched off to retrieve the wayward Scanner.

Charlotte smiled at the half-strigoi's retreating back. "Guess he decided to stop avoiding her," she remarked, handing Fet another box to load onto one of the pickups.

The ratcatcher gave her a puzzled look. "Avoiding her?"

"What? You didn't notice?"

Fet shrugged. "Well, y'know, he keeps his distance from everybody. Why should she be any different?"

Charlotte laughed and affectionately patted his cheek. "You're so cute when you're clueless."

* * *

"Hey!"

Quinlan looked up and saw Laura waving from the barn's upper window. He didn't bother to ask what she was doing up there. "The others are nearly finished loading the supplies."

"That's great. Um, can you come in here a sec? I kinda need your help with something."

"Help with what?" Quinlan's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Laura sighed, "Well, the thing is, I'm stuck up here."

"Stuck," he repeated after a pause.

"Yes, stuck," she retorted, sounding frustrated, "As in I can't get down."

With a disapproving glare, Quinlan entered the barn. He discovered the old ladder on the ground in two uneven pieces, splintered with age and dry rot. Quinlan looked up at the sheepish Laura peering down from the hayloft. Even though his expression didn't change, the Born somehow managed to convey exasperation with just a hint of amusement.

Laura rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know, I'm an idiot. Can you please save the lecture till after you get me down from here?"

"Very well." Quinlan leapt, pushed off the barn wall, grabbed onto the ledge, and hoisted himself up without any sign of effort.

"Wow," Laura smiled, impressed, "That's like parkour or something."

A hoot drew Quinlan's attention to the agitated owl in the corner. The bird had spread its wings in an effort to look bigger as it stood protectively over its nest.

"Easy, girl," Laura soothed. The owl slowly relaxed and settled back down, to Quinlan's mild surprise.

"You seem to have a way with the creature."

She shrugged. "Animal minds are easy. So, how're you gonna get us down from—whoa! Okay," Laura yelped as the Born scooped her up bridal style and abruptly stepped off the edge of the loft. The twenty foot drop went by in a rush and he landed with the barest flex of his knees. He set Laura on her feet and marched towards the exit without so much as a glance her way. Laura hurried after him. "Thanks for—"

"Next time, try not to wander off on your own."

Laura frowned at the chastisement. "I didn't wander off—"

"You did not even tell anyone where you were going," Quinlan continued, still not looking at her, "You should not be so careless with your life."

"Gosh, I didn't know you ca—"

"You're too valuable a weapon in the fight against the Mas—"

"Will you let me finish one lousy sentence?" she snapped.

Quinlan halted, turned to face her. It annoyed him that she had any sort of affect on him. Even when he avoided her—and yes, he freely admitted to this avoidance—his thoughts returned to her again and again. Like a puzzle he could not quite figure out. She didn't fit into any of the categories for the countless humans he had known throughout his long existence. She didn't fear him, wasn't repulsed by him, didn't seek to exploit him, and didn't view him with the morbid awe of those attracted to creatures of darkness. So what was her motive? Why did she behave this way towards him? What did she _want?_

Her expression softened, which let Quinlan know that she overheard at least some of his thoughts.

"You're really not used to people being nice to you, are ya?"

"In my experience, people who are 'nice' always have an ulterior motive." He tilted his head, pale eyes assessing. "I just haven't figured out yours, yet."

Laura sighed, flung out her arms in exasperation. "I just want us to be friends."

"Why?"

"Because," she hesitated, "You're the only one who gets it. Gets...being a freak."

Quinlan stilled. Even the purr of his stinger fell silent.

"None of the others understand what it's like," she continued, "They can't. Which means the best I can hope for is their sympathy, and the worst, pity. And you get that, too. How being pitied is worse than being hated." She gazed at him with sad vulnerability. "I figured we'll never be normal, so maybe...maybe we can just be freaks together."

Once again, this strange woman left Quinlan at a momentary loss for words. He believed her sincerity, oddly enough. It made sense, reaching out to the only other outsider to ease her loneliness. But Quinlan could not give her what she wanted.

"I have spent over a thousand years hunting the Master," he told her, "One thing I have learned is that I cannot afford to be distracted."

Laura stared at him for an uncomfortable moment. Then a strange little smile flitted across her face. She shrugged, "Okay."

Quinlan blinked, nonplussed, as she strolled ahead towards the farmhouse. This was not the response he expected from his rejection. "Okay?"

She turned around, but continued to walk backwards. "Yeah. If you're not interested in being friends, then you're not interested. Okay." And with that, she turned and jogged the rest of the way back to the waiting vehicles, leaving the bewildered half-strigoi to gawk after her.


	5. V. Friends

The last people they traded with told Fet of a missile silo about thirty miles west. The information was technically true, but unfortunately the silo had been decommissioned years ago. Another dead end.

It was late, so they set up camp right there at the empty silo. Laura finally had a tent of her own at this point and Charlotte helped her pitch it.

"Ever been camping before?" the other woman asked conversationally.

Laura chuckled, "Kinda sorta. I had this really nice little RV, so I wasn't exactly roughing it."

"Not like now, huh?" Charlotte grinned as she secured the last peg.

"Yeah. Call me spoiled, but I like being able to use an actual toilet," Laura gazed ruefully at the rolled sleeping bag in her hands, "Not to mention sleep in a real bed."

Charlotte smiled in sympathy. "Well, the back of the van isn't much better." _**...least I have Fet to keep me warm...**_

Laura managed to keep a straight face. Charlotte didn't need to know she overheard that particular thought.

"Well, thanks for the help!"

"Not a problem." Charlotte sauntered off to join Fet in building the campfire. As usual, Ben and his buddies chose to camp a short distance away. Even though they all benefited from traveling together, there wasn't much friendliness between the two groups. Which was why Laura was surprised when one of the four survivalists approached her. It was Coffer, the hefty guy with the thick stubble.

"Hey," he smiled at her.

"Hi," Laura answered warily.

"Y'know," he indicated her bedroll, "that sleeping bag isn't rated for winter use."

"Guess that explains why I always have to sleep in all my clothes."

Coffer narrowed the distance between them. "Well, I got a spare bag you can use that's rated for negative twenty degrees," his smile morphed into a leer, "Then you can sleep without your clothes."

Laura found herself caught between humor and nausea. "Um, thanks, but I'm fine with the one I have."

"Pretty girl like you shouldn't have to freeze every night." He leaned closer and Laura picked up an image from his mind involving her in what looked like a very uncomfortable position.

Nausea it is, then.

"Leave her alone."

Laura almost smiled at the Born's timely arrival. Coffer threw a scowl at the interloper. "This ain't your business, freak."

Quinlan fixed his unsettling gaze on the man. "She's clearly not interested in your vulgar attentions. It would be best if you returned to your companions," he slowly closed the distance between them, casual yet threatening, "and not trouble her with your presence any further."

It didn't take a Scanner to see the conflicted thoughts that ran through Coffer's mind. On the one hand, pride demanded that he not look weak in front of a woman. On the other hand, standing up to the half-strigoi was a good way to get oneself butchered. It didn't take long to make a decision.

Coffer put on a look of false bravado and scoffed. "Bitch isn't worth the hassle."

Quinlan's only visible reaction was a slight curl of his fingers. His pale eyes remained fixed on Coffer's back as the man retreated to the other half of the campsite. He then directed his gaze to Laura. "If he bothers you again, let me know."

Laura smirked. "Thanks, but I really didn't need you to rescue me."

A crease appeared between his nonexistent eyebrows. "You shouldn't downplay the potential danger."

"Look, the guy's sleazy, but he's not a rapist. I would know," she reminded him.

"Fine," he responded tersely and started to leave. A touch to his arm stayed him.

"I really meant it, though," Laura said, "Thanks for stepping in when you did. It was getting pretty awkward."

Quinlan hesitated, then gave a slight nod in acknowledgment. "He was correct about the sleeping bag."

Laura sighed, "Don't exactly have a lot of options. Unless you wanna share—and, wow, that came out all wrong." Her cheeks flushed a bright pink. "Seriously, I wasn't hitting on you. That was supposed to be a joke."

The faintest hint of a smile appeared on his face. "I shall accept it in the spirit it was intended."

"Great. Uh, see you around." Laura ducked into her tent before she could embarrass herself further.

As he strode away, Quinlan's smile broadened.

* * *

"Startin' to think we oughta try a different State altogether," Fet muttered. He stabbed his fork into his canned spaghetti dinner with unnecessary force.

Charlotte patted his knee in sympathy. "Don't give up on us yet. North Dakota's a big place. There's still a lot left to check."

"Our luck's bound to change eventually," Laura added from the opposite side of the fire, "I mean, you found _me_ , and there's way fewer Scanners than nukes."

"Yeah, but we had a list of addresses to point us in the right direction," Fet argued, "There's no list for nuclear missile silos we can get ahold of. They're not shown on any map. We're just wandering around, following rumors and thirdhand information. It's gettin' us nowhere!" Another frustrated jab at his helpless food.

Laura tossed her empty spaghetti can into the fire and stood. "I'm gonna hit the hay. G'night."

"Goodnight." "'Night."

She headed for her tent, not really tired, but eager to put some distance between herself and the doom and gloom that emanated from the ratcatcher. As she entered the tent, she almost tripped over the rolled-up sleeping bag left inside. It wasn't hers. This one was thicker, made of a better quality material. Did Coffer leave this for her? If so, he'd expect something in return. He wasn't the type to do anything from the kindness of his heart.

Something was tucked under one of the binding straps. Laura pulled it out, expecting a note, and discovered instead it was a gum wrapper. Juicy Fruit. She laughed in surprise.

* * *

The melting point of silver was 1,763 degrees Fahrenheit. A propane torch was adequate for the task, though a furnace was preferable. Of course, being on the road, Quinlan had to make do. The biggest challenge was finding enough propane. Fuel of any kind was scarce these days. Rarer than silver, in fact. But Quinlan was resourceful. If propane became too difficult to find he could, given time, build a makeshift furnace. He had learned many blacksmithing techniques over the centuries, a necessary skill for a hunter whose prey required special forged weapons.

The lowered tailgate of a pickup served as his worktable. Quinlan dropped a handful of spoons into the crucible and watched them melt down as if they were butter. He then maneuvered the crucible away from the propane torch and poured the liquified metal into the bullet molds. He already had a dozen finished rounds sitting in neat rows waiting to be loaded into casings.

"It is safe enough for you to stand closer," he spoke without looking up.

Laura moved to stand beside him. "Didn't wanna distract you."

"You are not a distraction." He set the mold aside to cool, readied another, then loaded more silverware into the crucible.

Laura regarded the depleted silverware set in its wooden case. Probably somebody's great-grandma's wedding gift, once upon a time.

"I, uh, just wanted to say thanks for the sleeping bag."

"You're welcome." His gaze remained fixed on the melting silver.

"Where'd you get it, anyway?" Laura inquired, "You didn't steal it, didya?"

"I bartered for it."

She couldn't help but snort in surprise. "With what? You're wearing everything you own." She glanced at the finished rounds. "Did you pay in silver?"

Silence was the only answer she got.

"God, Quin," Laura's hand went to her forehead, "That's way too much!"

Quinlan started pouring the latest batch into the molds. "Do you wish to return the sleeping bag, then?"

"Wel...no." Last night was the warmest she'd slept through in months.

"Then it is pointless to argue about it."

The propane torch guttered out. A long exhale through the nose was the only indication of the Born's vexation. As he started to clear away the now useless equipment, something occurred to him and he turned to face Laura for the first time since she approached him. "Did you call me 'Quin'?"

"Yeah," she shrugged, "Sort of a nickname. You like it?"

"No."

"Oh, but you're okay with Born-o," she retorted.

Quinlan rolled his eyes. "I detest that name."

"You tell Fet that?"

"Yes," his expression became rueful, "Now he calls me that all the time."

Laura laughed. Her eyes were drawn to the finished bullets. She picked one up to examine it. "So, how do you attach these to the, uh, cartridges?"

"Casings," he corrected her, "Once the bullets are inserted, they are called cartridges." He showed her a device called a bullet seating die and proceeded to demonstrate how to make the cartridges. It looked simple enough, if a bit time consuming since he could only make one at a time.

"I could do that," Laura volunteered, "I'd kinda like to feel useful."

Quinlan gave her a considering look, then nodded. "Alright."

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. "Huh!"

The corners of his mouth twitched. "Did you want to fight over it?"

"No!" she was quick to answer, "I just..."

The Born tilted his head. "You expected me to be dismissive of you. Why?"

Laura shrugged, crossed her arms. "Most guys are."

"So your assumption was based solely on my gender," he cocked a hairless eyebrow, "That is rather sexist of you."

She snorted laughter. "Smartass."

He beckoned her closer. "Come. I'll teach you how to do this."

Laura sat down on an overturned ten gallon bucket beside him and began the lesson.

* * *

"So, strigs can't cross moving water."

It wasn't really a question, but Quinlan answered all the same, "Yes."

He and Laura were seated in the back of the panel van with Fet and Charlotte up front. Charlotte was driving, but a while ago it was Quinlan behind the wheel, until they came to a bridge and he had to trade places with the woman. That was when Fet dropped that nugget of information about strigoi and Laura's curiosity was piqued.

"Just _moving_ water? Not, like, ponds or lakes?"

"Only moving water," Quinlan stated, his tone flat with disinterest.

"That's why the Master needed human help to get the nuke to the Statue of Liberty," Fet added while he scrutinized the roadmap.

Laura frowned. "Wait, you mean strigs can't even operate a boat over moving water?"

"No boats, no bridges," Vasiliy glanced back at her, "Not without human collaborators at the wheel."

"But...that doesn't make any sense." She turned to the half-strigoi beside her. "So you can't pass over moving water, either?"

"No."

"Why the hell not?"

His lips thinned. "It is not in my capabilities."

She scoffed, "You can't because you can't? That's no answer." Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You don't know why, do you? You're totally clueless."

Quinlan glared at her. "As it happens, I do know the reason for this...limitation."

"Great. Let's her it."

"Gotta admit," Fet spoke up, "this talk's got me curious, too."

The Born fixed his gaze straight ahead, hands folded primly on his lap. "The reason is irrelevant."

"Oh, come on!" Laura huffed.

"You can't bring up the subject and try to cop-out of the answer," Vasiliy chastised.

"I didn't bring up the subject," Quinlan corrected him, "You did."

"He's got you there," Charlotte smirked, eyes on the road.

Fet gave her a mock-wounded pout. "Whose side are you on?"

"So you're not gonna tell us anything," Laura pressed, ignoring the couple's banter.

The Born merely regarded her with inscrutable colorless eyes.

"Fine, Mr. Crypticality," she crossed her arms and pretended to sulk, "See if I share anything with you from now on."

"I shall try to contain my disappointment," he responded in a tone as dry as the desert.

"Okay, then."

"Good."

"Great."

Quinlan sighed, "Must you always have the last word?"

Laura smirked at him. "Yep."

A flicker of amusement passed through his expression. "Very well."

"Fine."

"Excellent."

"Terrific."

Fet listened to the ongoing exchange with growing bemusement before he looked at Charlotte and mouthed, _What the hell?_

Charlotte snickered.

* * *

"Hey, Quinlan?"

He looked up from the gun he was cleaning. "Yes?"

Laura continued to measure out the correct portion of gunpowder for the latest round of ammo she was making. "I think we might be friends now."

Quinlan appeared to consider this. "I think you may be right."

Laura smiled.


	6. VI. Serendipity

_3 months later, 9 months after Illumination Day..._

It seemed that as more time passed, each new group of survivors they encountered became more paranoid and aggressive. Which was why, when they learned of the half dozen or so men encamped at a rundown farm on Route 17, Fet insisted that he and Charlotte approach alone.

"This is not a wise idea," Quinlan stated.

"They've been in the area for months," Fet argued, "There's a good chance they know where we can find a missile base. If we all show up, they might not be willing to cooperate."

"And if you and Charlotte approach them alone and unarmed, they may just kill you and do worse to her."

Vasiliy flashed an optimistic grin. "Well, good thing you'll be keepin' an eye on us from a discreet distance." He slapped the half-strigoi's shoulder and hurried off to ready the motorcycle.

"He's not as chipper as he looks."

Quinlan glanced at the woman who appeared at his side. "He's losing faith in our mission?"

Laura gave a half shrug. "That and it's really eating at him whenever we have to kill other humans."

"It is always in self defense."

"Sure, but for him it also feels like we're doing the Master's job for him."

Quinlan studied her for a moment. She was somewhat thinner, but more from activity than a lack of food. Her hair was a bit longer. The blue peacoat she once wore had been replaced with a thicker fleece-lined parka in a shade of blue-gray that almost matched her eyes. She also wore a black knitted cap pulled low over her ears and the same teddybear boot cuffs she had when they first met.

"And how do you feel about it?" the Born inquired.

She sighed, "I think it's a crappy situation all around."

The rumble of an engine drew their attention to the couple astride the recently salvaged motorcycle. Both were unarmed, as per the plan, and Charlotte brandished a makeshift white flag made from a piece of cloth tied to a long stick.

"Guess that's your cue to head out," Laura remarked.

Quinlan raised his hood over his head and sped off after the bike. No matter how many times she witnessed his inhuman speed, Laura was still amazed by it.

The encounter with the other group didn't work out the way Fet hoped. The men saw him and Charlotte as easy targets, and the result was four goons dead by Quinlan's sword. The rest of the convoy moved in, and now everybody helped themselves to everything of use while the remaining goons sat on their knees with their hands in the air.

Quinlan didn't participate in the looting. His swift dealings with the armed men had taken more out of him than he cared to admit. Even though he fed from one of the fatally wounded men, he was still disturbingly tired. Listening to Fet's angry ranting didn't help matters. The exterminator's frustration over their continual setbacks had finally boiled over. Quinlan really couldn't blame him, but two thousand years of ample experience had taught him the futility of such behavior. It was a waste of time and energy.

"...finding empty holes in the ground," the Ukranian growled, "finding _no_ holes in the ground, eating jackrabbit, wondering when someone's gonna shoot me for dinner." Fet all but flung a can of gasoline into the bed of the truck he was loading.

"You can leave whenever you want," Quinlan reminded him.

Vasiliy threw a glare at him. "No, I can't. 'Cause I'm not a quitter!" he declared, then clarified, "I'm a complainer, but I'm not a quitter."

"Clearly an important semantic difference," the Born observed wryly.

"You, you're always in the same freaking mood," Fet grumbled, "Maybe that's something I should try."

Quinlan was positive such restraint was beyond the burly ratcatcher.

Fet's mood improved a little when Charlotte plied him with some moonshine she found and a much needed pep talk. The couple shared a kiss while Quinlan looked on. He felt troubled by the relationship between them, knowing it would have to end. But what bothered the half-strigoi even more was the increasingly frequent stab of emotion that he didn't dare put a label to. If somehow forced, he would have to admit that this feeling was something like jealousy. Not of them, but of what they had. What he once vowed to never again experience.

He pushed these grim thoughts aside as Laura trotted up to him with an excited look on her face.

"Check it out," she held up a package of Charmin, "I get to wipe my ass with real toilet paper today!"

A smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. "I suppose congratulations are in order."

"Hey, don't knock it," Laura rebuked, "Not all of us are on a liquid diet, you know. Some of us have solids to deal with."

Quinlan huffed a not-quite laugh, a reaction that would have been shocking to most in his acquaintance. "Then I'll consider myself the fortunate one."

Laura's expression sobered a little. "No offense, but you look kinda run down."

"I believe my latest meal was anemic," the half-strigoi confessed.

"You gonna be alright?"

His response was utterly deadpan, "I'm not as delicate as I look."

She snorted.

"Let's hurry it up, guys, "Ben called out, "We're burnin' daylight."

"Such as it is," Laura muttered, eyes cast towards the sickly yellowish sky.

The last of the pilfered goods were loaded onto the vehicles and the convoy set out once again. It didn't take long to find a secluded place in the woods to set up camp. One good thing about North Dakota; there was no shortage of wilderness to hide in.

Fet remained subdued throughout dinner. The longer they searched, the more doubts began to surface. It wouldn't take many more disappointments for him to lose all hope of ever locating a nuclear weapon.

Charlotte did what she could to cheer him up, which was why Laura found herself wandering the edges of the campsite during the frigid night instead of cocooned in her nice, warm sleeping bag in her nice, cozy tent. Not only was overhearing people's thoughts during sex extremely embarrassing, but it also had the added discomfort of making her all hot and bothered. She was willing to risk hypothermia to put some distance between herself and the happy couple.

A faint metallic rasp drew her attention to an area a little ways outside camp. As she neared the source of the sound, the familiar whisper-hum of Quinlan's thoughts grew stronger. Laura found the Born seated on a blanket he'd spread out on the ground, his back against a fallen tree. He was honing his sword, which explained the raspy noise. Even though he didn't pause in his movements or shift his posture in any way, Laura knew he was aware of her.

She plopped down beside him on the blanket. "Hey."

"Not tired?" Quinlan paused to test the blade's sharpness with his thumb. There was the faintest hiss when his skin reacted to the silver.

"Kinda hard for me to sleep with the lovebirds goin' at it." Laura shivered and drew her knees up to her chest. "Figured I'd bug you till they were finished."

"And what makes you believe I care for your company?" he asked as he put away the whetstone and sheathed his sword.

Laura's head cocked, eyes turned up in thought. "I suppose I could bribe you." She dug something out of her pocket, held it out to him. "Orbit cinnamint gum?"

The corners of his mouth quirked. "You were holding out."

"Nah. Just saving it." She handed him the pack.

Quinlan unwrapped a stick and put it in his mouth. His stinger purred as the flavor burst on his tongue. He loved cinnamon.

He nearly choked when Laura suddenly wrapped her arms around him without warning. He automatically raised his own arms to avoid touching her. "What are you doing?" the vibration in his voice became more pronounced with his dismay.

"Relax, I'm just stealing your body heat." She snuggled up against him. "You're like a walking furnace."

Quinlan was at a loss. He wasn't comfortable with this sort of casual intimacy, yet he didn't want to simply push her away. Already he could feel her relaxing, her slower breaths a sign that sleep approached.

"Put your arms down," she mumbled, "You look silly."

Quinlan doubted she would know how he looked, since her eyes were closed. Nevertheless, he let his arms drop, the right one draped over her shoulders. He listened to her breathing slow until he knew she was asleep. He knew he should feel more conflicted, that he should struggle to keep this woman at arm's length, for her sake as well as his own. But...the way she hugged him without any reservation, the way she spoke to him, looked at him. It had been a very long time since anyone treated him as a friend rather than an asset. As self-sufficient as the Born was, he still experienced loneliness like anyone else. This time he could reassure himself that, being a Scanner, Laura was already targeted by the Master. It would not be Quinlan's fault if...

He sneered at his need to rationalize his behavior. It was ridiculous, not to mention selfish. Hadn't he learned his lesson after Louisa and Lydia?

His internal sense of time told him that morning was still hours away. Fet and Charlotte had finally ceased their amorous activities, if Quinlan's keen ears were correct. Which meant Laura could now sleep in her tent without picking up any unfortunate "background noise". He was about to pick her up when she began to squirm. Her sudden restlessness puzzled him until he heard muttering coming from the van. It seemed that Fet was having a bad dream, and Laura was receiving at least some of it. Fortunately, the Ukranian's mumbling roused Charlotte and she tried to wake him. A moment later, Quinlan heard a loud gasp from Fet. Laura's body gave a sharp jerk, then stilled. Quinlan waited to see if she was awake, but she relaxed instead. Her breaths evened out. Carefully, he slid his left arm under her legs, tightened his other arm around her back, and stood. Laura barely reacted as he carried her to her tent. Quinlan ducked through the tent's opening and lowered the slumbering woman onto her sleeping bag. As gently as possible, he removed her boots and coat, then zipped her into the bag. She curled up in its cocooning warmth with a sigh.

She looked...peaceful. Innocent. Quinlan had an urge to brush the hair back from her forehead. An urge he resisted. Instead, he left the tent and zipped the flap closed behind him.

* * *

"Did it get weird last night?"

Quinlan glanced up from the magazine clip he was in the process of reloading. "Compared to what?"

The corner of Laura's mouth rose in a half smile. "Touché."

It was a relief to see that last night's snuggling hadn't caused any awkwardness between them. Laura hadn't been sure; she knew he was sometimes conflicted about their friendship. No doubt he suffered a lot of painful losses in his long life, and she had a pretty good idea who was to blame for at least some of those losses. No one dedicated their life to hunting someone down without very personal reason.

Laura sat down beside him at the folding table and picked up an empty clip. The newly minted silver bullets sat in neat rows on the table. Fingers slightly clumsy with inexperience, she carefully began to load the cartridges into the clip.

The two of them worked in silence until Charlotte approached. "Hey, Fet and I are heading out to that cornfield we found on yesterday's scout. Wanna come along?"

"No," Quinlan answered flatly, then paused in surprise when he felt a kick to his shin. He glanced at Laura, saw her give him a _look_. Arching a nonexistent eyebrow, he returned his gaze to Charlotte and added, "But thank you for the offer."

"Yeah. Thanks, Charlotte," Laura said, "But I think I'm gonna stay here, too."

"Alright. See you guys later." Charlotte threw them a wave as she sauntered off.

Laura smirked at the half-strigoi. "See? Being nice isn't so hard."

"That's a matter of opinion," Quinlan countered. He set the loaded magazine aside, started feeding bullets into another. "I've found such conventions to be an unnecessary waste of time."

Laura scoffed, "So? You're immortal. What d'you care?"

A smile escaped before he could suppress it. He met the Scanner's challenging look. "Perhaps I simply dislike people."

"I don't believe that."

"Why not?"

"'Cause you like me!" she grinned.

Quinlan feigned indifference. "I will admit I do not find your company intolerable."

Laura laughed and gave his shoulder a friendly punch. "You say the sweetest things."

* * *

The day was getting late and Fet and Charlotte still hadn't returned. That was very much not like them. No matter how much fooling around they might squeeze in during their outings, the couple always returned to camp before nightfall. Even Quinlan was concerned at this point.

"I'm going to look for them," he told Laura.

She didn't try to hide her worry. "Shouldn't you take at least one of the guys along for backup?"

The Born shook his head. "Ben and his cronies will only slow me down." He checked the magazines of his micro uzis before he slid them into the holsters under his coat. "I have convinced them to remain encamped here another day—"

Laura could imagine what that "convincing" entailed.

"—but they will not wait a third day," he cautioned, "If I or the others don't return by tomorrow morning, I want you to go with Ben's group."

"Uh, okay." She didn't relish the idea of dealing with those four hicks on her own. "But it won't really come to that, right?"

Quinlan didn't bother with a response. Without another word, he turned away and headed out into the darkening night.

Laura sat by the fire and tried not to fret as she waited for his return. The Born could handle any threat out there, and Charlotte and Fet were two of the toughest people she'd ever met. They'd be fine. They'd all come back with a couple of bags of desiccated corn and a story about how the motorcycle broke down—

She jumped to her feet at the sound of approaching engines. One of them was definitely the motorcycle, while the other was something bigger, like a pickup. Her guess proved right when the two vehicles pulled into camp. Laura hurried over once the engines died. She met Vasiliy and Charlotte first as they hopped off the bike. "Where've you guys been?"

The ratcatcher flashed a brilliant grin. "Got ourselves nabbed by a bunch of women."

Laura chuckled, "What?"

"It's true," Charlotte replied, "They chained Fet up in the barn and tried to convince me to join them, like some kinda Amazon cult."

"But that's not the best part," Fet declared. He gestured to the newly acquired pickup as its occupants exited. One of them was Quinlan, the other a thirty-something man with dark skin who kept nervously eying the half-strigoi.

_Bet that was an interesting ride,_ Laura mused.

"This is Roman," Vasiliy introduced the newcomer with obvious excitement, "Guess where he used to work."

"He was a soldier stationed at a nearby nuclear missile base," Quinlan interjected.

The Ukranian's broad shoulders slumped. "Way to steal my thunder, Born-o."

Laura turned to Roman, hopeful. "You worked at a missile base? A-Are there any nukes left?"

The soldier nodded, "Yeah. We never got the order to launch, so it should still be there."

Laura smiled, relieved, and when she met Quinlan's gaze, she saw the same rising optimism in his pale eyes. Their luck was finally turning.


	7. VII. Strength & Weakness

Roman told them the base was about a day's ride away. Quinlan was all for heading out right then, but the others vetoed that. They still needed food, since Fet and Charlotte struck out at the cornfield. So, after some much needed rest, the couple grabbed their rifles and headed out on a hunt. They returned that evening with a large buck that Charlotte brought down. Everybody appreciated the fresh meat—well, everyone except Quinlan. Soon the smell of cooked venison filled the entire camp.

Charlotte, Fet, Laura, Quinlan, and Roman were seated around the fire, the Born studying a roadmap while everyone else dug into their meal. "Your missile silo's not marked on the map," Quinlan informed the newest member of the team.

Roman shrugged. "That would kinda defeat the whole 'secret base' thing, wouldn't it?"

The half-strigoi's only reaction was an unsettling blank stare, which made the former soldier avert his eyes and fidget slightly.

"How many people are we gonna find there?" Laura asked. She was seated to Quinlan's right, close enough for their shoulders to brush. When she'd chosen her seat, she caught the partial surprised thought from Roman: _**How the hell can she...**_

"Five," he answered, "Plus my CO."

"Think they're still there?"

The soldier shrugged, "Why would they leave? They had enough supplies to last two years. If anything, there's probably _more_ folks there."

Laura wasn't thrilled to hear that. More people meant more thoughts added to the noise in her head. A relentless barrage that threatened to drown her.

Vasiliy brought up a worry of his own. While out on their hunt, he and Charlotte spotted a convoy in the distance. A look through the binoculars revealed a mixed group of strigs and human collaborators. If those munchers found the missile base before them... Well, they wouldn't know for sure until they got there.

"How will your friends react to us taking the warhead?" Quinlan inquired.

Another shrug from Roman. "It's cool. The hell are they gonna do with it, right?" he scoffed, "Military's gone, so who gives a shit?"

It still came as a shock to realize that even now nobody knew for sure who fired their missiles at who. The sheer chaos of it, as if it was all a force of nature rather than a war.

"Six thousand years of civilization," Charlotte mused aloud, "Now we're all back to hunting, gathering, dodging predators." She shook her head in amazement.

"Master knocked us down a notch on the food chain, that's for sure," Fet muttered while he scraped up the last bit of food from his plate.

Quinlan spoke up, "It was your bombs that brought about the Night Eternal, not the Master."

Vasiliy paused mid-chew to stare at the Born.

"Without the weapons of mass destruction your people so eagerly hurled at one another, the Master would still be hiding in his tunnels."

A tense silence descended while the others waited to see how the often short-tempered Ukranian reacted. Fet put aside his plate and rose to his feet without shifting his intense glare from the half-strigoi. Quinlan stared back with his usual aplomb.

Vasiliy took a breath and finally broke the silence. "Right now we...we just need to rest," his voice was strained with barely controlled outrage, "We leave in four hours." With that, he stormed off to the van he shared with Charlotte.

An awkward mood settled over the group for a moment until Charlotte cleared her throat and excused herself, no doubt to assuage her boyfriend's grumpy mood.

A hard nudge to the shoulder drew Quinlan's attention to Laura's admonishing look.

"What?"

A snort escaped Roman. "So, uh, you always this good at pissing off your friends?"

Quinlan blinked. "I only spoke the truth."

"Sometimes truth's the last thing people wanna hear," the former soldier informed him.

The Born looked at Laura as if for confirmation. She responded with a slow nod, her expression bordered on condescending. Quinlan frowned in mild bewilderment.

Roman observed their wordless exchange in fascination. "Are you two, like, 'talking' to each other?"

Laura's brow furrowed. "Huh?"

"Well...Fet mentioned you're a Scanner."

"Oh!" she laughed, "That wasn't a telepathic thing. That was just, y'know, a friends thing."

"Okay. But you _are_ a Scanner, right?" Roman persisted.

Since she only picked up genuine curiosity from him and no hostility, Laura felt comfortable answering. "Yep. Regular little freaks club over here," she joked, indicating herself and Quinlan.

"Cool," Roman grinned, "So, what's a guy gotta do to join up?"

"I dunno," Laura's eyes twinkled in amusement, "Got any weird mutations?"

"I can bend my thumb backwards."

Laura giggled, actually _giggled._ Quinlan had been watching their interaction with puzzlement, but now he was...he didn't really know what he was. But he knew he didn't like it. He didn't like the way this virtual stranger made Laura laugh so easily when with everyone else she was reserved. Even towards Fet and Charlotte sometimes.

_But not with you,_ whispered a little voice at the back of his mind. It had been over a century since he heard that imaginary voice. He hadn't missed it.

"Fet was correct about the need to rest," he abruptly stood, "We should all turn in for the night."

"Uh, sure," Roman replied a tad uncertainly. He got to his feet as well and headed for his tent. "G'night."

"Night, Roman," Laura called after him. She then turned in her seat to regard Quinlan.

He met her gaze without blinking. "Is there a problem?"

"I dunno. Is there?" Her tone was not confrontational, merely curious.

Instead of a response, Quinlan held out a hand. When she took it, he pulled her to her feet. "Pleasant dreams, Laura."

She eyed him in suspicion for a moment, then decided to let the matter drop. "Good night, Quinlan." And she headed off for her sleeping bag.

* * *

They arrived at the 284th Strategic Missile Squadron, Launch Site I-12, the following afternoon only to discover they were not the first group to find it. Roman cursed at the sight of several bodies, human and strigoi, scattered around the entrance to the underground base.

"Those your people?" Fet asked.

Roman knelt by one of the dead soldiers. "Yes."

Ben called out a short distance from them, "Hey, what about that diesel fuel you promised?"

Laura gaped at the man's total apathy towards Roman's distress.

"Fuel's right there," the soldier bit out as he gestured sharply to the pump, "Take whatever you want."

While the survivalists helped themselves to the diesel, the others gathered around the silo's open entrance.

"Could the munchers have opened it?" Fet wondered.

Roman shook his head. "A silo cap weighs eighty tons. Had to be opened by someone who knew how."

"What about the missile?" Quinlan started towards the opening, but Fet stayed him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Hold up. First things first." The exterminator hopped up onto the raised platform that surrounded the entrance and dug something out of his coat pocket.

"Are you out of your mind?" Roman exclaimed once he recognized the object, "You can't drop a grenade down there!"

Fet waved off his concern. "Relax. Thing's got less bang than a firecracker. It's just gonna spread a lot of silver around, burn out any munchers still hiding down there."

A silver grenade? Laura stepped up beside Quinlan to get a closer look.

"Never a more perfect time to day this," Fet yanked the pin and dropped the nondescript cylinder into the silo, "Fire in the hole!"

It went off with a lot less noise than Laura expected. After giving it a few seconds to let the silver dust settle, Quinlan approached the opening. Laura followed, curious to see what was down there. The two of them leaned over the edge to peer down the massive shaft and there it was, an untouched, unfired missile.

"Finally," Quinlan smiled at his companion, "Some good news."

Laura smiled back, then her expression suddenly morphed into fear and she lunged at him. She shoved the startled half-strigoi hard enough to make him stumble one crucial step, and the bullet meant for him pierced her side instead. Laura gasped, started to fall. Quinlan grabbed onto her with both arms, but their balance was too precarious and they both tipped over the edge and tumbled down the shaft.

Quinlan tried his best to shield Laura's body with his own. He took the brunt of the abuse when they banged into one of the support struts that held the missile upright, and made sure he was the one to strike the ground so his body cushioned her landing. He and Laura both lay stunned for a moment. Quinlan felt the back of his head get singed by the powdered silver that now coated the floor.

"Quinlan!" Fet's voice echoed down, "Laura! You guys alright? Can you hear me?"

"Yes," Quinlan yelled back.

Shots ricocheted off a support beam above their heads. Quinlan reacted with faster than human speed. He clutched Laura to him as he sat up and slid them both underneath the missile, his back against one of the massive struts it stood on. The sudden movement roused Laura, who groaned in pain. Her hands pressed tightly to her injured side. Blood seeped between her fingers. Quinlan hadn't survived the fall unscathed himself. His right femur sustained a serious fracture. A large shard of bone protruded from his thigh. Nothing fatal, of course, but certain to hinder him a while. Right now he was far more concerned about Laura.

"Let me see." He gently tugged her hands away from the wound. Laura whimpered, but didn't resist. Even leaned over a little to give him a better view. Another close shot from their unseen attacker made her jerk back, which caused a flare of pain that brought tears to her eyes.

Fet shouted, "Whoever's shooting down there! Look, we're human! We mean you no harm!"

A moment later Roman called out, "Sigala? Ducali? Is that you? This is Captain Daniel Roman. Stand down and come out!"

No such luck.

Meanwhile, Quinlan remained focused on examining Laura's wound. "The bullet went clean through," he stated calmly, "It's shallow enough that it only hit the soft tissues."

"S-So it's not that bad?" Laura stammered through gritted teeth.

"It is a flesh wound." He replaced her hands over the injury. "Keep pressure on it."

"Okay." It was then that she noticed his broken leg. "Oh, my god!"

"It's not as serious as it looks," he tried to reassure her, "Remember, I heal quickly."

"Is it...Can I help?"

He propped his leg up against the opposite support pillar. "I'm going to need your belt."

Laura managed to unbuckle her belt one handed and slid it out of the loops. She watched, horrified, as Quinlan somehow popped the bone back into place and then cauterized the wound with a handful of silver powder. Quinlan gritted his teeth as the flesh sizzled from the toxic metal. When the pain subsided enough, he unsheathed his sword, then used his and Laura's belts to secure it to his leg as a makeshift splint.

"Now I need you to lean forward slightly so that I can remove my gun from the holster," he told her. Laura did so. Once he had the weapon in hand and made sure it was loaded, Quinlan switched it to his left hand.

"Can you shoot him from here?" Laura asked.

"I can at least keep him occupied until the others reach him." Quinlan leaned out just enough to get the sniper's attention, then ducked back to avoid the shots. Now that he knew which direction to aim for, he leaned out again and sent out a spray of bullets from his micro uzi. He ducked back to safety as soon as the magazine was empty.

"Yo, buddy," Fet's voice called out from somewhere closer than before, "Stop with the shooting, alright? It's hard on the ears."

Quinlan reached for the other holster only to discover it was empty.

"Um," Laura pointed, "It's over there."

The second micro uzi lay just out of reach beyond the shelter of the missile.

"Shit," Quinlan hissed. It was the first time Laura ever heard him cuss.

Meanwhile, Fet still tried to reason with the shooter. "Those two down there, one of 'em's a half-muncher. Trust me, man, he's impossible to kill. If you don't stop and listen to reason, he's gonna kill you."

"Shut up!" a youthful man's voice shouted, "You are trespassing on US government property!"

"I'm not playing around, kid," Fet warned, "You keep screwing around, my friend down there's gonna jack you up."

Quinlan spoke up, "He's telling the truth. Put the gun down and I'll let you live."

"No deal, asshole," came the soldier's belligerent reply.

"Fine," the Born growled, "So be it."

Laura trembled against him. Her breaths were unsteady. Worried that she might be going into shock, Quinlan wrapped his arms around her to give her some of his warmth.

"We will not be trapped here for much longer," he promised.

"So scared," she whispered.

"It's alright."

"No, I mean him," she looked in the direction of the sniper's hideout, "He's terrified. He thinks we're part of the same group that attacked this place and killed all his friends."

"You can hear him." It wasn't a question.

"Wait..." Her body went still. Quinlan peered around to glimpse her face, saw her expression go blank.

Laura reached out with her mind, followed the thread of the soldier's thoughts all the way back to him—

_**...I'm an American fighting in the forces which guard my country and my way of life...** _

—and focused.

Higher up in the silo, Fet peered around the curve of the corridor to see a twenty-something kid in a wrinkled uniform crouched at an open hatchway with a rifle. Before he could formulate a plan of action, something strange happened. The sniper tensed and began to shake, like he was struggling with something or having some kind of a seizure. Blood began to ooze from his nose, veins popped out on his face like they were about to burst from his skin.

_What the hell is happening to him?_ A horrified Vasiliy gaped. Just when he thought the kid might have a stroke, the soldier suddenly hurled his weapon through the hatch and then collapsed on the floor. Fet rushed to his side. "Sniper down!"

"Are you alright?" Quinlan took in Laura's pale features with concern. He'd never seen her actively scan another person before and was surprised by how traumatic it was, for her and the person she scanned. At first she appeared almost serene, but then he felt the tremors run through her body, saw the veins rise through the skin at her temples as she strained against the mind that fought her invasion.

"I'm fine," she answered shakily, "Let's get outta here."

Good idea. The smell of her blood was making his stinger twitch.

The two of them struggled to their feet while leaning on each other. Quinlan retrieved his other uzi, as well as the soldier's discarded rifle, then he and Laura made their unsteady way to the first exit they saw. They made the painful journey up the stairs to where Fet and the sniper were. Quinlan's keen ears overheard the latter's words, "Strigs came. There were people with them. People like the captain, like you. Why the hell would you do that?"

Just as Laura said; he believed his attackers had returned.

Laura sobbed and doubled over. "I can't...It hurts."

Quinlan's jaw clenched. He could easily carry her had his leg not been broken. "Wait here. I'll get Fet to help you." He gently lowered her to a sitting position on the floor, back against the wall.

She grabbed his arm when he started to withdraw. He expected a plea for him not to leave, but instead she said, "Don't kill him. You said you'd let him live if he dropped the gun."

"He only dropped the gun because you forced him to," was his cold response.

She squeezed his arm. "Quinlan, please. He's not a threat now. He won't hurt anybody."

"He hurt you," the words slipped out before he could stop them.

Laura's voice was rough with pain, "And I'm asking you not to hurt him back."

A muscle twitched in Quinlan's jaw, the rattle of his stinger became more pronounced, but he reluctantly nodded. Laura released his arm. She leaned against the wall with both hands pressed to her wounded side to wait for Fet to come for her.

Quinlan limped his way down the corridor until he found Vasiliy crouched over the sniper. The ratcatcher quickly stood. "Is Laura okay?"

"She's alright, but she needs your help." Quinlan pointed behind him. "Please take her to Charlotte. I will guard the sniper."

Fet hurried past the Born to retrieve their injured friend. Quinlan's attention remained fixed on the soldier. A boy, really. Quinlan still had the rifle and he raised it to point at its former owner. The young soldier glared at the half-strigoi. Blood from his nose caked the lower half of his face. His skin looked clammy, bloodshot eyes surrounded in dark circles from lack of sleep. The nametag on his uniform read: DUCALI.

"You gonna finish me off, strig?" Ducali spat, "Or you gonna drain me first?"

Quinlan's voice betrayed his controlled rage, "The woman you shot, she pleaded for your life. She is the only reason I haven't put a bullet through your skull."

"The woman I shot," he dabbed at the blood that still seeped from his nose, held up his red-smeared fingers, "She did this to me, didn't she? She's one of those freaks. A Scanner."

Quinlan did not deign to respond.

Ducali sneered. "You and her got some sick thing goin' on? Huh? The freak and the bloodsucker," he barked a contemptuous laugh, "You-You guys are dickless, right? So how's that work? D'you shove your stinger up her—"

"Silence your disgusting insinuations," Quinlan's voice reverberated to a degree that he was barely understood. His finger itched to squeeze the trigger.

Ducali scrambled to his feet. "Or what? You'll shoot me anyway?" He stomped aggressively towards the Born. "C'mon, leech. What're you waiting for?"

"Step back," Quinlan hissed.

The soldier lunged at him. In his hand was the knife he surreptitiously drew from a sheath in his boot. It was a suicidally reckless move, but he was past all rational thought at this point, fueled by hours of rage, terror, and sleep deprivation. Quinlan didn't bother to overpower the boy. He squeezed the rifle's trigger and the bullet struck the young soldier between his eyes. Ducali's body dropped at the half-strigoi's feet.

"What the hell did you do!" Fet rushed in, having left Laura in Charlotte's care. He knelt by the body to check in vain for a pulse.

"He attacked me," Quinlan stated plainly.

The look Fet directed at him was both incredulous and accusatory. "You're the one with the super strength and the weapon. He wasn't any threat to you."

Without a word, the Born turned and hobbled away, uncaring of Fet's judgmental stare.

* * *

Charlotte finished taping the gauze over Laura's newly stitched wounds. As Quinlan had surmised, the bullet went straight through the soft tissue in her side, too shallow to hit any organs.

"You were lucky," the trained nurse declared.

Laura muttered, "Yeah. Lucky me."

"Only thing we gotta worry about is infection," Charlotte continued, "Fortunately, this place has a fully stocked infirmary." She dug a couple of medicine bottles out of her satchel. "Antibiotics and some kickass painkillers. Just follow the instructions on the labels and keep the wounds clean."

"Sure." Laura tucked the bottles into her coat pocket and started to get up from the mattress that lay on the floor of the van where Charlotte and Fet slept.

Charlotte placed a hand on the other woman's shoulder. "Hey, there's no rush. Go ahead and rest here awhile."

Laura lay back with a sigh. "Okay. Thanks."

With a final smile, the nurse hopped out of the van, leaving her patient alone for the moment. Laura closed her eyes, tried to rest. Her injuries throbbed, but she couldn't motivate herself to take one of the pain pills just yet. She lay there for what felt like a couple of minutes, but might have been longer, when a familiar whisper-hum in her mind made her lift her head. Quinlan appeared at the open rear door and climbed into the van. Laura noticed he no longer had the splint on his leg. Damn, that was quick.

"Charlotte tended to your wounds."

Laura nodded, even though it wasn't really a question. "Flesh wound, like you said. How's the leg?"

"Mostly healed," the Born replied.

"Lucky you." Laura winced as she sat up and scooted until she could lean her back against the wall.

"You should rest," Quinlan admonished.

"I know." And without warning, she burst into tears.

To her surprise, Quinlan wasn't put off by this emotional outburst. He reached out to place a gentle hand on her shoulder while she blubbered into her hands. "It's alright."

"No, it's not," her muffled voice sobbed, "I'm being all pathetic and w-weak."

Quinlan gave her shoulder a squeeze, then he gently but firmly pulled her hands away from her face. "Look at me."

Laura reluctantly turned her puffy eyes on him. There was none of the dreaded pity or disappointment in his expression, or in the thoughts she sensed from him. He continued to hold her hands, his grip light, warm, and comforting. Later it would occur to her that this was the most prolonged physical contact he ever initiated with her.

"You survived alone in the wilderness for months before we found you," Quinlan reminded her in his calm, solemn voice, "You have been coping with the thoughts of others in your mind without complaint, and you are willing to risk your life and sanity to return with us to New York and confront the Master. There is nothing weak or pathetic about you. This," he lifted a hand to lightly touch her tear-stained cheek, "is nothing more than a normal reaction to the trauma you've just experienced. It is nothing to be ashamed of."

Laura sniffled, "Guess you've had a lot more time to get used to stuff like this."

"Yes, but his does not mean I am unaffected." Quinlan withdrew his hand from her cheek and straightened to put some distance between them. Laura felt uneasy; she didn't need to hear his thoughts to know he was about to tell her something she wasn't going to like.

Never one to mince words, Quinlan bluntly told her, "The soldier is dead. I shot him."

Laura stared at him. "You promised not to."

"He attacked me."

"Attacked you?"

"With a knife."

A sharp, incredulous sound escaped her. "A human attacks you with a knife— _you—_ and you just shoot him?"

Quinlan heard the mounting anger in her voice and felt something akin to remorse. "I'm sorry I broke my promise to you."

"Then why'd you do it?" she didn't quite yell, "He wasn't a threat to you without his gun. You didn't have to kill him."

"He was a threat—"

"No, he wasn't!"

"—to you."

Laura stilled, eyes wide.

Quinlan continued, "He knew what you are. He would have harmed you at the first opportunity. I _know_ this. I've seen that look in his eyes too many times in my past to ignore."

Laura's anger seemed to have cooled during his explanation, but a deep frown still creased the space between her eyebrows. "I don't need some knight in shining armor to protect me, Quinlan. I'm not helpless."

"I know," he replied levelly, "Just as you know I would have survived had that bullet struck me. Yet you took the hit for me anyway." His head tilted to the side. "Do you regret your actions?"

Laura swallowed, shook her head.

"Nor do I." He sighed, lowered his gaze for a brief moment. "You may not be able to forgive—"

"Whoa, wait a sec, Mr. Dramatic."

Quinlan blinked. _Mr. Dramatic?_

"This isn't something I can forgive or not forgive," Laura stated, "I'm not the one you wronged. Yeah, I'm upset that you killed the guy, but I'm not his friend or family. He was just a stranger to me."

"Then why did you beg me to spare his life?"

"I did that for _your_ sake, not his," she paused to let that sink in, "The only person who has any right to offer forgiveness for his death is whoever knew him while he was alive."

Quinlan frowned while he mulled over her words. "I understand."

"Okay." She watched him start to leave. "But for what it's worth..."

He paused, looked to her.

"What you did," she hesitated, "it doesn't change how I feel about you."

A faint smile appeared on his pale features. "Then I count myself fortunate."

* * *

Quinlan chose to wait until after they safely removed the warhead before he approached Roman about Ducali's death. Of course, he was further delayed when it was discovered that the bomb was missing a vital component called a pit assembly. Now they knew why the strigoi attacked and what the convoy Fet and Charlotte saw were transporting. The Master sought to take the rest of the nukes out of play.

While the others readied the vehicles to begin the search for this convoy, Quinlan took the opportunity to speak to Roman.

"Hey," the former soldier greeted him a tad nervously. He was in the process of packing up his gear, but paused when he saw the Born coming. "Need something?"

"What did Fet tell you about the sniper?"

Roman shrugged. There was a touch of somberness in his expression at the mention of his lost comrade. "He told me it was Ducali. We weren't all that close, but he was a good kid. Damn shame what happened."

"And what do you believe happened?" Quinlan prompted.

"Uh, Fet hinted that he took Ducali out when he wouldn't stop trying to kill you and Laura," his dark eyes narrowed in suspicion, "But I'm guessin' that's not what really went down."

"No." Quinlan told him everything, beginning with Laura scanning the sniper and forcing him to disarm himself, and ending with Quinlan shooting Ducali with his own rifle. "Even with the broken leg, I could have easily subdued him. I chose not to."

Roman's expression had gone stony. Now a spark of rage glimmered in his eyes. "So, what, you figured you'd fess up and ease your conscience?"

"My conscience is clear," Quinlan stated, "I have no remorse for my actions and would do the same if given the choice. I'm merely informing you of what happened because I believe you have a right to know the truth."

Roman let out a cynical snort. "Thanks."

Quinlan turned to leave.

"Tell me somethin'," the former soldier halted him, "Is it the strigoi half of you that makes you a heartless bastard, or are you gonna blame your human side?"

The Born stood with his back to the captain for a beat, then walked on without another word.


	8. VIII. The Heist

Roman led them to other missile bases he knew of in hopes of finding a pit assembly to complete the nuke. Each time they arrived too late; the strigoi had already raided the silos first. It became a race to get to the next base. This time when they arrived at the 302nd Missile Squadron, Site H-11, they actually witnessed the strigs and their collaborators removing the pit assembly and stowing it in a tractor trailer.

"Every time we get to a silo these assholes beat us," Roman lamented, "We're running out of silos to hit."

He, Quinlan, Laura, Fet, and Charlotte all lay on their stomachs atop a rise where they could observe their enemies from a safe distance. Fet currently peered through their only set of binoculars.

"They'll be out of here soon," he muttered. Then he spied what looked like a pair of strigoi on some serious steroids. "What the hell are those things?"

He passed the binocs over to Quinlan, who stared at the creatures with grim concern. "Mongrels," he growled, "The Master's mongrels were baked in loam and anointed with a worm exchange over two full moons."

Beside him, Laura quipped, "Obviously."

Quinlan handed her the binoculars so she could take a took for herself. "A frontal assault at this point would decimate our ranks," he predicted.

From what she saw, Laura agreed. So did Fet, apparently, as he followed up Quinaln's statement with, "Hitting these munchers, mongrels, and all those collaborators would be suicide."

If they wanted to retrieve the pit assembly, their best chance was to take the convoy on the move. They waited until the strig vehicles cleared out before they returned to camp to work out their plan of attack.

"They're taking the pit south on Route Five," Fet traced the path in the snow with a stick, "But where?"

"Might be going to the salt mine down state for disposal," Roman suggested. The pit assemblies were far too dangerous to destroy, which meant the Master had no choice but to store them somewhere.

Fet pursed his lips. "If we're gonna turn our nuke into a functioning one, we're gonna have to steal a pit from 'em."

Ben overheard from his seat on the tailgate where Charlotte was in the process of drawing some of his blood for Quinlan. "From that convoy?" the survivalist exclaimed, "I don't think so."

"C'mon, Ben," Vasiliy cajoled, "We could handle it."

"The only thing we're getting from that shit show is our asses handed to us," the other man snapped.

"We all saw those mongrel monsters," Coffer added from his spot beside another truck, "They even made Rob Zombie nervous." He nodded towards the Born. Quinlan reacted to his statement with an icy stare.

Laura spoke up in his defense, "Quinlan can take them."

Ben sneered, "Quinlan can't even take care of himself right now with Charlotte spoon feeding him our blood." He angrily pulled the needle from his arm. "Y'know, I think I've given enough."

Enraged and more ashamed by those words than he wanted to admit, Quinlan bit out, "If they don't want to help, then I'll do it alone." He began to storm off.

"Wait," Laura hurried to block his path, "You can't do this by yourself."

"I need no one," his voice reverberated, "I've been hunting the Master on my own for over a thousand years."

"Yeah, and how's that been working out for you?" Laura drawled.

Quinlan's lips drew back from his gray teeth. "Don't test me."

Unintimidated, the shorter woman raised a challenging eyebrow. "Or?"

The half-strigoi glowered at her, but made no response.

Fet took the opportunity to step in. "Look, I get it. You don't like people and they're not too thrilled about you either. But what you're doing right now is stupid. You're only doing it because you're rattled," he leaned closer, his words urgent and earnest, "You and Laura almost died in that silo, but I helped get you out. So just work with me and we'll get this job done."

It was obvious what he said got through to Quinlan, but before the Born could respond, Charlotte approached with a self-congratulatory look on her face. "Alright, the guys are in," she announced.

"What changed their minds?" a surprised Fet blurted.

"I did," his girlfriend smiled, "I told them they could have all the silver in the back of that truck."

Laura grinned, already guessing the answer. "What silver?"

Charlotte shrugged and said in mock innocence, "Well, we don't know for sure there _isn't_ any silver in there."

Fet laughed and scooped her up in a bearhug. "That's my girl!"

Laura snickered at their antics, though she could tell Quinlan was uncomfortable. Fet put Charlotte down and hurried off to formulate a plan of attack while Charlotte handed the mason jar of Ben's blood to Quinlan.

"Thank you, Charlotte." Quinlan accepted the warm jar. It was barely half full.

Charlotte smiled and nodded, then went to join Fet.

Laura scrutinized the jar. "That's not enough, is it?"

Quinlan sighed, "Not nearly enough."

Without even a thought to the fact that he had an audience, the Born unscrewed the lid and stuck his stinger into the jar. The blood was gone in an instant.

Laura was worried. "Are you gonna be strong enough to fight those mongrel things?"

"I will have to be," he answered solemnly, "There is no other choice."

She chewed her lip for a moment, then came to a decision. "You can take some more blood from me."

Startled by the offer, Quinlan blinked at her. "You don't realize how dangerous that would be. You were injured mere days ago. If Charlotte were to draw too much..."

Laura shook her head, "I'm not asking her to do it. I'm asking you."

Quinlan's astonishment increased. She was willing to let him feed directly from her? In all his life, only two other people made such an offer to him. One was his adoptive mother, Ancharia, who sacrificed herself to save him from a desperate situation. The other was Louisa, a woman he met in the late nineteenth century whose fascination with his vampiric nature bordered on the fetishistic. When he drank from her, it was an almost sexual act and had required all of his self control not to drain her. Now, weakened as he was, Quinlan feared he might not stop himself in time.

Laura reached for his gloved hand. "Hey, it's okay. You need this. And I trust you."

She meant it. There was not a trace of fear in her gray eyes. Still he hesitated. "You are certain?"

"For the last time, yeah," she chuckled. "So, how do we do this? Should I uh..." She reached for the zipper of her coat.

Quinlan stopped her. He was not about to tempt fate by drinking from her carotid. Instead, he took her arm and pushed the sleeve back to expose her wrist. He met her eyes to check if she changed her mind, then he opened his mouth wide and let his stinger emerge. He kept its movements slow to give her plenty of time to back out, but Laura remained steadfast even when the slimy appendage wrapped around her slender wrist.

Laura winced at the initial piercing, but the slight pain was gone the instant after she felt it. She stared in fascination as the wormlike stinger pulsated. Her eyes followed its length from her arm back to Quinlan's gaping mouth and the two petal-like halves of his split tongue. She lifted her gaze to his pale eyes staring intently into hers. Laura smiled to reassure him that she wasn't afraid. But maybe he already knew. Quinlan told her that strigoi could hear people's heartbeats. Was he listening to hers right now?

She blinked in surprise when his stinger suddenly withdrew. A glance down at her wrist revealed a tiny dot of blood where it had pierced her. Quinlan wiped it away with his thumb, then pulled her sleeve back down.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," she smiled. Laura took a step, swayed, and would have fallen if not for Quinlan's hand on her shoulder. "Whoa," she laughed, "Head rush."

Quinlan scooped her up and carried her to the vehicles.

Laura protested, "Hey, I can still walk, y'know."

The Born ignored her. He set her down on the same tailgate Ben sat on earlier and stepped away, returned a moment later with a bottle of water and a granola bar.

Laura rolled her eyes, "You don't have to fuss over me."

Quinlan practically shoved the granola bar into her hand. "Eat."

With exaggerated movements, she tore away the wrapper and took a huge bite, her eyes sarcastically wide while she chewed. Quinlan set the water bottle down beside her. "Be sure to drink all of this."

"Yeth, Mom," she slurred around a mouthful of granola.

Charlotte came over, looking concerned. "You alright, Laura? You're looking kinda pale."

"I'm fine," she swallowed, took another bite, "Jus' woozy is all."

"Woozy?" Charlotte's eyes widened. She turned to the Born. "Did you drink from her?"

"She insisted," he muttered, not meeting her eyes.

Laura tossed the empty wrapper aside. "Guys, I'm okay. I just, um..." she started listing to the side, "Jus' need t' lie down a minnit."

Quinlan caught her before she tipped over.

Charlotte pointed to the back of her and Fet's van. "Put her in there."

Laura snagged the water bottle and chugged almost half of its contents by the time she was placed on the mattress in the back of the vehicle.

"Just stay here a while till the dizziness passes," Charlotte told her. Laura responded with a thumbs up.

"C'mon," Charlotte beckoned the half-strigoi after he secured the van's door, "Fet and Roman are working out the details for the heist. You should put in your two cents."

As he walked beside her, Quinlan spoke, "I would appreciate it if you didn't mention this to the others. Fet in particular can be somewhat irrational when he finds my actions disagreeable."

The woman snorted, "You mean he might lose his temper when he ought to be focused. I get that." She paused to meet his gaze. "But if he asks me about Laura, I'm not gonna lie to him."

Quinlan nodded his understanding. Fortunately, the subject of Laura's absence didn't come up. As the only non-fighter in the group, she would not have been able to contribute much to the strategizing anyway.

Once the plan was hashed out, everyone got ready. They already knew what direction the convoy was headed. Using the many back roads and shortcuts both Charlotte and Ben were familiar with, the group managed to get themselves ahead of the convoy. Fet and Charlotte strung a cable between two electrical poles that stretched taut across the highway about twelve feet in the air. The couple then rejoined the rest of the team at a concealed side road where they would ambush their enemies. A ways farther back, Quinlan stood openly on the road awaiting the strigoi vehicles' arrival.

And so they waited.

* * *

Quinlan nearly rolled his eyes as Fet's voice crackled over the walkie yet again to ask him, _"You in position, Quinlan?"_

"Yes," he sent his irritated reply, "The same position I was in thirty minutes ago."

_"We spotted the convoy. It's headed your way."_

Finally. Quinlan readied himself. Moments later he heard the collective rumble of several engines, then the vehicles came into view. A large black SUV was in the lead, followed by the tractor trailer which held their prize, and followed in turn by another SUV and a black van that brought up the rear. The convoy sped towards the Born, ready to run him over.

Quinlan drew his sword, sidestepped, and slashed the lead SUV's tires as it passed him. With a screech of shredding rubber, the vehicle spun out and ended up in the ditch. Quinlan resheathed his sword, then flipped onto his back so the semi could pass over him. He then grabbed the rear bumper to pull himself onto the back of the trailer. There was an access ladder which led to the trailer's roof. Quinlan climbed it.

As expected, the mongrel in the cab with the driver soon clambered out to confront the Born. Quinlan drew his sword again and charged. As he fought the overhyped strigoi, Quinlan was suddenly grateful for the extra blood Laura had given him. It at least brought him enough strength to hold out against the mongrel until he saw the suspended steel cable rush towards them. Quinlan dropped flat on his back an instant before the confused mongrel was sliced in half. The Born then climbed down to the semi's cab where he ripped the door open, flung the human driver out, slipped in behind the wheel, and stomped on the brakes. There was a loud crunch as the second SUV crashed into the rear of the tractor trailer.

It was then that the rest of the group rushed out of hiding to join the fight, led by the black pickup with the big gun mounted in the back. Fet used that weapon to riddle the final vehicle in the convoy—the black personnel van—with hundreds of bullets. Everyone else joined in with their various assault rifles until every strig and collaborator was dead. All except the mongrel that jumped out of the crashed SUV and launched itself at Fet. Lucky for the Ukranian, Quinlan chose that moment to appear from the front of the semi. He flung his sword like a javelin, impaling the mongrel in midair. The creature's body crashed to the ground.

"Resist the temptation to read anything into the fact that I saved you," Quinlan said as he casually yanked the sword from from the carcass, "Again."

"I will," Fet smirked.

Quinlan's mouth pulled into a half smile.

Once the all clear was given, Laura exited the safety of the van and joined the others as they gathered around the tractor trailer. She was still a tad lightheaded, but steady enough to walk on her own. She approached the Born and smiled at him. "Knew you could do it."

"Thanks to you," he told her in all sincerity.

The team wasted no time breaking into the trailer. There was likely a tracking device set to lead reinforcements right to them, not to mention the fact that the Master probably witnessed the heist through his strigois' eyes.

"Let's get that silver and get the hell out of here," said an eager Ben with his cohorts.

"Uh, yeah," Vasiliy shifted awkwardly, "About that..."

"I might have stretched the truth about how much silver we saw being loaded into the truck," Charlotte confessed.

Ben's eyes narrowed. "How much did you see?"

"Approximately?" Fet shrugged, "None."

Not surprisingly, the survivalists didn't take the news well. Coffer went to peer into the opened trailer. While hardly empty, there was a definite lack of the precious metal inside. Coffer glared at the former exterminator. "You're telling me we risked our lives taking this convoy so that you could get plutonium and we'd get nothing?"

"Well, I wouldn't say _nothing_ ," Fet unleashed his winning smile, "You have our undying gratitude."

His attempt to defuse the situation did not go over well. Coffer raised his weapon, then everybody else raised theirs. Well, everybody except Laura, who didn't have a gun, and Quinlan, who still had his sword out. Laura started to wish she'd stayed in the van.

"I'm guessin' the Partnership will do better," Coffer declared, "In fact, I'm betting they'll pay a pretty penny to get their plutonium back. Along with you," he threw a disdainful look at Quinlan, "and Hairless. Dead or— _shit!_ "

He leapt back as a stinger whipped out of the open trailer and snapped to a halt a hair's breadth from his throat. Coffer, Ben, and the rest of the survivalists made a panicked dash to the closest vehicles.

"Guys, wait!" Charlotte shouted uselessly as they sped away.

"What the hell?" Fet gaped at the strigoi. The creature just stood in the back of the trailer, its body quaking as if it was having some kind of a seizure. Veins popped out of its skin, white blood oozed from its nose. "What's wrong with it?"

It was Quinlan who answered, "Laura."

All eyes turned to the young woman who stood calmly staring at the captive strigoi. She appeared relaxed, except for her eyes. The pupils were contracted to pinpoints.

Roman gaped. "She's scanning it!"

Then the strig's eyes flashed red. Laura screamed and the strigoi's head exploded. Everyone jumped back from the spatter of blood, brains, and worms. Luckily, only a few of the parasites landed on Fet's and Roman's heavy coats, easily brushed off.

Quinlan moved to steady Laura, who was hyperventilating. "Are you alright?"

She flinched from his touch. "Y-Yeah, just...gimme a sec." She shuddered. Laura had never felt anything like what just happened. The brain-itching buzz of the strigoi's crude mind had surged with a sudden, terrifying power. Something ancient and malevolent that, for just an instant, focused all its considerable hatred on her. Laura had no idea if it could actually harm her; her consciousness yanked itself away from it out of pure reflex, like fingers from a hot stove. If that was the Master, she couldn't fathom why such a being would ever consider her a threat.

There was no time to waste pondering over what just occurred. Roman and Fet entered the trailer to retrieve the pit assembly. They loaded it into the back of one of the remaining pickups.

"You took your time," Quinlan chided several minutes later as Fet locked the tailgate in place.

"We got the pit," Vasiliy retorted, "That's all that matters."

"Nothing matters until the Master is destroyed."

Fet smirked at him. "You just can't be happy, can you?"

"C'mon, guys," a nervous Roman called out, "Let's get our asses outta here before more of those mongrel freaks show up."

He, Quinlan, and Laura piled into the loaded pickup while Fet and Charlotte took the van. They sped away from the wrecked convoy, looking to put as much distance between them and it as possible before nightfall.

Roman drove while Laura and Quinlan sat together in the backseat. Quinlan eyed the scanner in concern. She was uncharacteristically subdued after her telepathic brush with the Master. What's more, the Master now knew they had a scanner with them as well as a fully functional nuke. This put Laura in even greater danger. Quinlan had no doubt his loathsome father would stop at nothing to see her killed. Or worse.

Laura finally met his gaze. "I'm okay," she assured him, "He just scared me is all. I'm tougher than I look." She said that last part with a self-effacing grin.

"I know you are," was Quinlan's sincere response.

Her smile widened a little, became almost shy. The Born felt his own severe features soften at her expression. And that was when he knew that he could not allow her to return to New York with him and Fet.


	9. IX. Courage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of my favorite chapters to write. It's not always easy to write believable emotions in characters, but I feel like I did a pretty good job with this. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

It was not until they made camp in an old horse pasture that evening that Laura discovered her tent and sleeping bag were missing. Gone with Ben and his crew when they took off with half of their vehicles. Luckily, there was a new-ish truck with a camper shell on the back parked next to the empty horse shelter. With some spare blankets for a makeshift bed, it was comfortable enough, if a bit chilly.

"You sure you wanna sleep in there?" Roman asked while they all finished their dinner around the campfire, "Y'know, my tent's plenty big enough for two."

Laura smirked, "This the part where you suggest we share body heat?"

The former soldier gave a nonchalant shrug. "Well, I wouldn't be so rude as to turn you away if you asked."

She laughed, "Such a gentleman."

Quinlan scowled from the opposite side of the fire. It wasn't the first time Roman made such flirtatious remarks to Laura and each time the Born had to stifle the urge to snap at the soldier. He wasn't naïve, nor was he in denial about his feelings. Quinlan knew this was jealousy. It was yet another reason why he needed to convince Laura to stay behind when he and Fet brought the nuke back to New York. He could not afford to let his commitment to his destiny be clouded by these emotions. He made that mistake before, with Louisa and her child, Lydia. And they were the ones who paid for that mistake with their innocent lives.

A touch on his arm drew him from his brooding. Charlotte smiled and handed him a full jar of blood. Quinlan already knew from the scent that it came from Fet. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, and good night." She sauntered off to join Vasiliy in the van. Roman had already retired to his tent, which left Quinlan and Laura together by the fire.

Laura observed the Born while he stared gloomily into the flames. It was silly how she couldn't tear her eyes away from him sometimes, even after months of traveling together. But he was...beautiful. She thought that from the moment she first saw him. All those features he shared with the strigoi—the bone white skin, the hairlessness, the pointed ears—they were beautiful on him, whereas the strigs were just ghastly. Laura had no idea why that was. And it wasn't just how he looked. She loved the way his deep voice reverberated and even the clicks and purrs from his hidden stinger. Strange, inhuman sounds that she delighted in. all of it offset by the distinctly human details that nobody else seemed to notice about him. Like the way his breath steamed in the cold air. Strigoi didn't breathe, but Quinlan did. And Laura also knew from the night she snuggled with him that his heart beat, albeit far slower than normal. He was unique in the truest sense of the word. There was no one else like him anywhere. And he couldn't see it, didn't know how amazing and special he was. The rare times when he gave any thought to himself or looked at his own reflection, the words that resounded in his thoughts were _grotesque_ and _monstrous_. It broke Laura's heart.

"It's late," Quinlan finally spoke, "You should sleep."

Laura nodded and stood. "Yeah. Big day tomorrow. Gonna find us a plane and head for the Big Apple in style."

Her smile faded at the thought she overheard. "What d'you mean I'm not coming?"

Quinlan's pale eyes regarded her dispassionately. "It means you will not be returning to New York with us."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I got that, but why? After all the time you guys spent looking for a Scanner, telling me I was necessary to defeat the Master. Now suddenly you just change your mind?"

Quinlan rose to his feet, slowly closed the distance between them. Laura stood as well, but even so, she had to crane her neck to meet the tall hybrid's gaze. She was startled to see not the usual calculated indifference in his eyes, but sadness. Her rising ire faded at the sight of it.

His tone, when he spoke, was quiet, almost pleading. "If you come with us, with me...you will die."

Laura shook her head. "You don't know that."

"I do." There was not a trace of doubt in his expression or mind. "Everyone I allow myself to get close to, they always die."

"The Master kills them?"

It was worse than that. "He forces me to kill them."

He told her about Ancharia, how the Master caused a cave-in to trap her and Quinlan together for days until deprivation weakened them both. Ancharia begged him to drink from her so that he would survive. _"Please, my son. I am suffering."_

He told her about his wife and daughter, Tasa and Sura, who Quinlan was forced to "release" after the Master had turned them.

He told her about Louisa and Lydia, the woman and child who reminded him of the family he lost so long ago. Their deaths were the ones he felt most responsible for, because he knew better by then. He knew the Master always targeted the people he loved. If Quinlan hadn't spent those months with them, playing house, pretending he was just an ordinary man...

"He left them to turn," the stinger in his throat constricted at the painful memory, making his voice vibrate like a bad recording, "Left them so that I would find them. So that I would have to end them. And that is what will happen to you." Quinlan grasped Laura's upper arms, not quite hard enough to bruise, desperate for her to understand. "If you come back with me to New York, he will find out...he will _know_ what you mean to me. He always knows," his hands squeezed, "And he will turn you. He will force me to kill you to set you free."

Laura was close to tears, not just from his words or the terrible memories that surfaced in his mind, but from the look on his face. Quinlan's stoicism finally cracked, allowing her to see the grief and pain that haunted him. He never intended to let her see that, she was sure. But telling her the things he always kept hidden away was more emotionally devastating than he was able to deal with. She reached up to grip his arms in turn.

"I understand," she managed to keep her voice steady, "I do. But I'm not staying behind."

"Laura—"

"No, you had your say. Now it's my turn." She took a breath to collect herself. "I know this is a suicide mission for you. That you believe when the Master dies, you die. And it's what you want," her voice quavered on the last word, despite her struggle to prevent it, "How do you think that makes me feel? Knowing my best friend has a deathwish. And you expect me to just run off and hide while you go down in some...some kinda self-centered blaze of glory? Fuck that."

She broke away from him to angrily wipe at her overflowing eyes. "This is my fight, too, dammit. I'm not gonna let you talk me out of it just because you're scared of getting hurt again. I'm scared, too. I don't want you to die," she sobbed. The sound tore into Quinlan. "But I'm not trying to talk you out of going," Laura continued, "I'm not gonna be selfish and-and try to manipulate you. I'm not gonna beg. And you don't get to do that, either. You don't get to tell me I have to keep going without you while you rush off to die! That's...not...It's not fair!"

She broke down as Quinlan closed the distance between them and wrapped her in his arms. She clung to him, her sobs muffled against his chest.

The others overheard most of her ranting at the end. Laura could sense their discomfort and concern. She didn't care. For months she'd carried their secrets, their unvoiced opinions, doubts, and fears. She'd known all along about Quinlan's desire to finally put an end to his long, violent life. She knew, but never said, because he never actually _told_ her. And if people didn't tell her in words, then it meant they didn't want anyone to know. It was a terrible burden, knowing things. Ignorance and denial were luxuries she didn't have. All Laura could do was keep silent.

"I'm sorry," Quinlan whispered. He should have realized—Laura told him the nature of her condition, how she was unable to filter out the thoughts of others, including his. Of course she knew he was destined to end with the Master. She couldn't not know. And yet she befriended him, allowed herself to care even though it doomed her to sorrow. "You have more courage than I will ever possess."

He drew back to gently cup her face in his hands. She stared at him with reddened eyes, pleading without words not to be abandoned.

"I don't understand the strength of your feelings for a creature like me," Quinlan murmured, "But I swear to never take those feelings for granted, nor dismiss them." His thumbs brushed the tears from her cheeks. Laura visibly calmed from his soothing touch.

"You're not leaving me behind," she stated flatly.

His mouth quirked. "I couldn't stop you from coming with us if I tried."

Laura managed a faint smile. "Damn straight."

* * *

Quinlan's eyes snapped open at the sound of activity outside. He raised his head to peer through the back glass of the camper shell to see Charlotte, Fet, and Roman all up and eating breakfast. Beside him, Laura slumbered on. She'd been exhausted after their emotional confrontation last night, yet she and Quinlan stayed awake together in the back of the truck, talking for hours about things they never spoke of before.

Laura spoke of her parents. Her father was a Scanner who dutifully kept his telepathy in check with Ephemerol. Neither he nor his wife had realized that the drug did more than just alter his brain while he developed in the womb; it changed his DNA as well.

"My mother was seven months pregnant with me the first time I scanned her," Laura said, "She thought she was going crazy till people around her started being scanned, too. The doctor put her on Ephemerol and it stopped, but...she never got over it, y'know? She knew I wasn't in control of it, but it was still a horrible thing that I did to her."

Shortly after Laura was born, her mother left. No contact, not even a phone call or a single birthday card. Laura wasn't even sure where her mother had gone or if she still lived. So Laura was raised by her father alone. They were very close, right up until the day he died of a heart attack five years ago.

Quinlan told her about his family, not just how he lost them, but the few years before then. Tasa was a Berber slave given to Quinlan when he served in his Roman patron's army nearly two thousand years ago. She had an infant daughter which she conceived after being raped by multiple soldiers. Over time, Tasa and Quinlan became very close, and Quinlan adored innocent little Sura, who never once looked on him in fear. So he freed them, married Tasa, and adopted Sura as his own child. He quit the Roman army after many years of loyal service to become a farmer, of all things, and for a time he and his wife raised their daughter in peace.

"I can't imagine you as a farmer," Laura chuckled.

"I happened to be a very good farmer," Quinlan replied haughtily, but with a flicker of humor, "My family never knew a day of hunger."

Laura smiled. "I'm glad you had a real life, even if it was only a short while."

Quinlan was startled to realize he and Laura both fell asleep shortly thereafter. He rarely slept that long. Even now he found himself reluctant to leave the warmth of the truck bed. To lay beside someone, even if they didn't touch, was a comfort he never thought to experience again. It was foolish of him to think he could simply push these feelings aside by ridding himself of Laura's presence. Foolish and cowardly. It was the fear of loss that motivated his words the previous night, which was just as good as handing the Master yet another victory over him. He would not make that mistake again. Quinlan vowed that he would deal with the fear of losing her and not let it taint their deepening relationship.

Laura didn't waken when Quinlan eased himself out of the camper shell. He shut the tailgate with care, so as not to rouse her, then went to join the others by the fire. Aside from a brief awkward silence, no one gave any indication that they heard his and Laura's heated exchange, for which the half-strigoi was grateful.

"Morning, Quinlan," Charlotte greeted him, "Got your breakfast here." She handed him a full jar.

Quinlan thanked her and went to drink his meager breakfast in private. He returned the empty jar moments later.

"Hey, Q."

He winced at Roman's nickname for him. Why did humans insist on the ridiculous practice? It wasn't as if his name was difficult to pronounce.

"Help me load the warhead?" The former soldier waved at the empty horse trailer sitting a few yards from them. They'd all decided while making camp to pool all of their resources into that trailer and leave all but one vehicle behind. Roman knew of a former special forces soldier who'd taken over a small airfield and turned it into his own private fortress. With any luck, he would have a plane available for them to fly the nuke back to New York.

After helping Roman maneuver their weapon of mass destruction into the trailer, Quinlan left him to secure it while he collected everything else they'd take along. He casually flung a container into the trailer, which caused the soldier to jump.

"Jesus Christ! Be careful! I'm standing next to a fully pitted nuke here."

Quinlan ignored him. The man insisted it was almost impossible to set a nuke off by accident. He saw no reason to treat it with kid gloves. After nine months of searching, time was of the essence. It was fortunate that the airfield was less than a day's ride away.

"You're certain we'll be able to get a plane from this man?" he asked as they continued loading the trailer.

Roman grimaced, "Certain-ish. Dooley had about half a dozen aircrafts, last I heard."

"Good." Quinlan passed him a full duffel bag to add to the growing pile.

"I wouldn't start poppin' corks just yet," Roman cautioned, "We have to actually see if he wants to trade."

The Born frowned. "Why would he not? All of our ammunition and supplies for just one plane is more than reasonable."

Roman took a crate of ammo from him. "Yeah, well, Dooley ain't exactly reasonable. He's one of those my way or the highway types."

"Then I'll show him my way."

Roman fidgeted under the Born's unsettling gaze. "You keep staring at me like that, I-I ain't comin' to New York with you. Seriously."

"Why are you coming?" The corners of Quinlan's mouth rose a fraction. "Seriously."

The soldier chuckled, "Look who's got jokes." He sobered a little when he gave his answer, "I figured I'll have a better chance with you guys than by myself. We made a pretty good team so far, right?"

"I suppose we have."

Quinlan's attention was drawn to a sleep-mussed Laura approaching the fire. Fet and Charlotte greeted the sleepy woman and plied her with fresh coffee and instant oatmeal. Laura was soon chatting with the couple while she dug into her breakfast.

Observing the half-strigoi's reaction to the woman's presence, Roman was astonished to witness something like a smile appear on Quinlan's normally expressionless face. It was especially startling after the altercation he overheard last night.

"Guess you two are over your lover's spat."

Quinlan's gaze turned flinty. "Excuse me?"

Roman licked suddenly dry lips. "Um, n-never mind."

"We shouldn't dawdle any longer," the Born reminded him.

"Right."

They loaded the rest of the supplies while the others finished off breakfast and packed their few belongings. The truck that Laura and Quinlan slept in proved to still be in good running condition and was roomy enough for everyone, so they hitched the horse trailer to it and siphoned their remaining fuel into the truck's tank.

Roman's voice rang out, "Alright, everybody. Let's load up before Q has an aneurism."

"I could think of worse things," Fet joked as he secured the trailer's ramp.

Laura chucked the last bedroll into the trailer, then went to join Quinlan and Roman in the truck. Fet and Charlotte took a little longer. By the time they got into the vehicle, they were both noticeably subdued. Vasiliy was especially somber.

There were two rows of back seats that were arranged facing each other; one row pointed towards the front, the other towards the rear, like seats in a train coach. Laura and Charlotte sat in the two rear-facing seats while Fet took one of the front-facing ones. Quinlan was in the front passenger seat and Roman drove.

It didn't take long for Laura to find out the reason for the sudden tension between the couple. After months in their company, the patterns of their thoughts were much easier for her to discern. Fet had asked his girlfriend to return with him to New York, but she said no. Charlotte's plan was to go to Montana where her dad kept a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. There she would live off the land and wait for the apocalypse to end, one way or another.

Laura personally didn't blame her. Not everybody was willing to throw themselves into a possible suicide mission. Not that Laura was going to say anything about it. She might not have any control over what thoughts she overheard, but she still knew how to mind her own business.

After a few miles, Fet broke the silence. "So, uh, tell me more about this cabin."

"Four walls," Charlotte answered simply, "and a roof."

Fet whistled, "Deluxe, huh?"

Charlotte's tone became serious, "Why are you asking?"

"Just curious." Fet turned his gaze to the view outside the window, his expression saddened.

Right when Laura started to feel like a third wheel, the CB radio crackled to life, distracting everyone. Roman fiddled with the radio's dial. "Somebody's opened up a channel."

"Who the hell's out there?" Fet wondered aloud, "And on our frequency?"

A familiar voice emerged from the speaker, _"...Board Field Regional Airport, Highway Eighty-Three."_

"Is that Ben?" asked Laura

Both Quinlan and Fet tensed at the second voice that they heard. _"Wonderful. We'll be there shortly."_

"Eichorst," the Born growled.

"The Master's number two? _That_ Eichorst?" Roman blurted in alarm.

"We gotta put some distance between us and them," Vasiliy declared.

Charlotte quickly directed Roman to a shortcut, a fire road often used by hunters in the winter. Once again they benefited from her local knowledge. A few minutes into the shortcut, Ben's signal got weaker.

Something terrible occurred to Laura. "If Eichorst's forcing Ben to come after us, that means the others are dead, aren't they?"

Fet nodded solemnly. "Yeah."

The Scanner chewed her lower lip. "Then the CB's not an accident. He's trying to warn us."

The fact that no one disagreed meant they all thought the same. Things might not have ended well between them and Ben's crew, but Ben's actions proved his loyalties were still with the human race. A final act of bravery from a doomed man.

"The Master's gotta be runnin' scared now that he knows we got the nuke," the ratcatcher speculated, "The only thing more dangerous than a king rat is a scared king rat."

There was nothing to be done except continue with their present course. With Charlotte's navigational help—and no doubt Ben's delaying tactics—they made it to the airport well ahead of their pursuers.

Everything about this place screamed _go away_ , from the bodies that littered the area to the hand painted signs on the closed gate reading: NO ENTRY, ARMED AND DANGEROUS.

Fet stared at the corpses in alarm. "Where the hell have you brought us?"

Roman answered plainly, "The only place I know where we can get an airplane."

"And our heads blown clear off," Fet muttered.

The truck rolled to a stop in front of the gate. Laura shifted in hear seat. "I got a bad feeling about this."

As if on cue, the driver's side mirror exploded in a shower of glass and plastic. Everyone ducked down in their seats.

"Sniper." Quinlan's gaze fixed on the airport's control tower. Its windows were boarded up, but there had to be gaps left for the sniper to shoot through. Quinlan, Fet, and Charlotte started to devise a plan of attack, but Roman interrupted them.

"Just wait." He grabbed the CB mic and spoke into it, "Sergeant Arthur Dooley, this is Captain Daniel Roman. Over."

They waited for a response, the tension mounting.

"If he shoots again, we're taking this place by force," Fet declared.

"Sergeant!" Roman barked into the mic, "Do you copy? Over."

Finally, an impatient man's voice responded, _"What do you want, Roman? Over."_

Relieved, Roman answered, "Lookin' to trade. Got ammo and supplies."

_"You and who else?"_

He threw a nervous glance at Quinlan. "Just me and four friendlies, uh, lookin' to do some business."

_"What is it you're looking for?"_

Roman tried for casual, "How 'bout an airplane?"

Everyone braced themselves. A moment later, the gate rattled open. Roman grinned and drove in. A fortyish man with a high powered rifle slung over his shoulder came out of the control tower to meet them as they all exited the parked vehicle. He and Roman shook hands and exchanged perfunctory greetings. Then the man saw Quinlan and immeidately drew his sidearm. There were shouts of alarm and accusations, weapons pointed at heads, and Roman standing in the midst of it all desperately trying to avoid a bloodbath. Only Quinlan remained unmoved, although he did take care to keep himself positioned between Laura and the sergeant's line of fire.

"You goddamn collaborators," the man snarled.

"Relax, he's one of the good guys," Roman told him.

Dooley remained skeptical. "He doesn't look like one of the good guys."

A blur of inhuman speed brought Quinlan less than a foot in front of him. "I can assure you, sergeant, you would already be dead if I were not one of the good guys."

Dooley absorbed this information for a beat, then came to a decision and put his gun back in its holster. The others lowered their weapons as well and Quinlan returned to Laura's side.

Fet walked up to the sergeant. "So, you got a plane for us, or are we just wastin' our time here?"

"Depends on what you're offering," Dooley retorted.

Roman showed him the trailer full of goods, pointed to the warhead. "Everything except that."

More than satisfied, Dooley showed them to a hangar where a small passenger plane was housed. It was the kind meant to hold maybe a dozen people at most, with propeller engines instead of jets. "It's all yours."

It was enough, though they had to remove some of the seats to make room for the nuke. Meanwhile, Fet and Charlotte said their goodbyes. She tried to convince him to go with her, but he couldn't give up the mission, not even for her. So, after a final kiss, Charlotte climbed onto the motorcycle Dooley generously furnished her with and sped away without a backward glance.

Laura went to stand beside the solemn Ukranian. "You could've gone with her."

"No," he sighed, "New York's my home. I gotta see this through. Besides, she deserves better than me."

"I don't know," Laura smiled up at the tall man, "You're a tough act to follow."

A grin parted Fet's bears and he patted her shoulder in thanks.

The men worked fast to load the warhead onto the plane, mindful of the fact that Eichorst would arrive at any moment. Dooley promised to cover their retreat from his tower, but one of them would relax until they were in the air.

Once the nuke was secured, Fet went to sit in the copilot's seat beside Roman while Laura and Quinlan rode in two of the remaining passenger seats.

"Not sure how comfortable I am sitting next to a nuclear bomb," Laura confessed, eying the nuke warily.

"Don't worry," Roman assured her, "It's safe enough."

Laura was not reassured.

The engines started without trouble, everyone fastened their seat belts. And then Eichorst arrived.

The Nazi strigoi was driving the pickup with the big gun in the back. There was no sign of Ben. Eichorst rammed the truck through the chain link gate and sped towards the runway.

"We need to go _now_ ," Quinlan insisted.

Roman sent the plane hurtling down the runway, the German in close pursuit.

"Come on! Come on!" Fet urged.

The plane tilted upward and they all felt their stomachs drop as the wheels left the tarmac. They were airborne, but not out of danger yet. Red streaks zipped past the windows, dangerously close to one of the engines.

"He's shooting at us!" Laura cried. She reached out to grab Quinlan's hand without realizing she did so until she felt him squeeze her fingers.

The hail of bullets suddenly stopped. The plane banked just enough for them to see a figure lying on the ground beside the truck. They also saw the control tower shot all to hell, a strong indication that Dooley lost the fight. By then the plane had gained enough altitude to put them out of the big gun's range.

"We did it!" Roman whooped, "I don't know how, but we did it!"

"I got a pretty good idea," Fet said with a smile. Charlotte. She must have circled back and fired on Eichorst with her hunting rifle from a safe distance. She saved their asses yet again.

Laura twisted in her seat to grin at Quinlan. For once, the Born allowed optimism to take hold and smiled back. Soon they would reach New York. The end of his long war with the Master was finally in sight.


	10. X. Burning Bridges

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a short one.

Lulled by the hum of the engines, Laura dozed. When she woke, murky day had given way to pitch black night. She stretched the kinks from her neck and checked her watch. 8:20pm. A peek out the window revealed...not much. "Where are we?"

Roman answered from the pilot's seat, "Long Island Sound. Up ahead's Yonally Airport."

She felt the plane's altitude drop. Her hands gripped the seat's armrests. Minutes later the plane landed smoothly and taxied down the runway.

"Roman, you're one lean, mean flyin' machine, man," was Fet's heartfelt compliment. "Now we just gotta find a truck and load this firecracker into Manhattan. Boom."

Roman brought the plane to a stop just as several pairs of headlights approached. Large black utility vans with the partnership logo emblazoned on their sides sped towards the landed plane.

"That just went down the priority list." Quinlan unfastened his seat belt and hurried out of the plane with Fet close behind, weapons drawn. The two of them made quick work of the dozen or so strigs that poured out of the vans. At one point, a mongrel leapt onto the Born only to have its head blown off by Fet. Quinlan shoved the body off him and stood, wiping the spattered white blood and worms off his face with a grimace of disgust.

Roman hopped out of the plane with his gun at the ready. "Okay..." he looked at the scattered bodies, "You guys already got 'em all."

The other two fighters stared at him.

"Oh, I had to shut down the systems," he explained.

Laura emerged from the plane once she was sure the coast was clear and went to join them. She pointed to one of the vehicles, "Guess that's our ride."

Vasiliy grinned in excitement. "I can't wait to see the professor's face when we bring him my present."

When they looked into the open rear doors of the van, they were happy to discover dozens of weapons and ammo stowed inside. Fet and Roman eagerly traded up for bigger guns. Quinlan gave Laura a handgun.

"Oh, uh," she held the weapon nervously, "I don't know how to use this."

"It's not difficult," Quinlan promised, "I will teach you."

A growl drew their attention to a wounded strigoi crawling on the ground. It rose to its knees when the Born marched over to it. The creature's eyes glowed red.

"Yes," Quinlan stated coldly, "We're here. And now we're coming for you."

The Master's proxy turned its malevolent gaze on Laura. She shivered at its intensity, but did not look away.

"Do not look at her," Quinlan snarled. That was a mistake. The Master's gaze snapped back to him and the strigoi's expression morphed into smug triumph. Now he knew.

"She means something to you," the Master's voice hissed, "You never learn, do you, Invictus."

Quinlan's lip curled. He reached for his sword.

"You will see her die like all the others," the Master vowed, "I will make sure that she suffers—"

The strigoi's head jerked back as two shots rang out. Its body toppled to the pavement. Quinlan spun around and saw Laura aiming the gun with both hands. Though wide-eyed, her voice was steady, "You're right. That wasn't difficult."

"Damn," Roman laughed in admiration, "Head shot on the first try. You're a natural."

"Not really. Think it was dumb luck more than anything." She lowered the gun and scrutinized it. "Plus some idiot left the safety off."

A gloved hand reached over to flip the safety on for her. She smiled her thanks at Quinlan, who gave a barely noticeable smile in return.

* * *

The team didn't waste time dwelling on what happened. First they loaded the nuke into the van, then Fet changed into a set of Partnership coveralls he found that actually fit him. Quinlan merely removed the harness with his very distinctive sword and stowed it in the back of the vehicle.

"Okay," Fet took charge, "Laura, Roman, you two ride in the back with the nuke. I'll drive and Quinlan can be my strigoi partner. Hopefully, we'll be convincing enough to get ourselves past any checkpoints."

They all piled into the vehicle and left the airport behind. The farther they drove, the more anxious Laura became. They were passing through areas containing large numbers of people and the constant din of their jumbled thoughts was starting to drown her out. She reached a shaking hand into her pocket and gripped the nearly empty pill bottle. If it got much worse, she would have to take an Ephemerol or risk losing herself altogether and putting her companions in danger.

While Laura suffered in silence, the van approached a checkpoint at Meeker Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Two uniformed enforcers halted the vehicle and approached the windows at either side. The soldier at the driver's side scanned the barcode on Fet's stolen armband and checked the reading. Satisfied, he asked in a somewhat bored tone, "What've you guys got in the back?"

"Medical supplies," Fet answered.

"We're gonna need you to open up so we can take a look."

Vasiliy didn't bat an eye. "I can't. It's radioactive."

The soldier frowned.

"It's for cancer patients," Fet explained, "Y'know, how they shoot their tumors with that nuclear shit?"

In the back of the van, Roman nearly groaned at the ratcatcher's bad improvisation. He was positive they'd have to shoot their way out of this.

The guard's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "I'm gonna need you guys to step out of the vehicle."

Quinlan finally spoke up, and he sounded quite put out with all of this. "Enough. This is an urgent shipment for high level patients." He leveled his intimidating glare at the enforcer standing by the passenger window. "If I have to step out, you will regret it."

The soldier managed not to flinch, but he was eager to be rid of that cold stare. "Just let them through, Hank."

The guard at Fet's side reluctantly signaled for the barriers to be moved aside. Right then another enforcer arrived and handed over a clipboard with several pages attached. Fet peered over the guard's shoulder and saw the first page had a photo of Setrakian. His stomach fell. Then the soldier flipped to the next page and his eyes widened on seeing Fet's image staring back at him.

Without hesitation, Vasiliy drew his gun and shot the soldier through the head. Before the guy's partner could react, Quinlan opened the passenger door and slammed it into him, knocking the man down. Fet gunned the engine and they plowed through the checkpoint's remaining barriers. The sounds of gunfire and raised voices followed them, but they managed to get away in all the chaos.

"Everybody okay back there?" Fet called over his shoulder.

Through the grating that separated the cab from the cargo area, Roman answered, "I'm good. Laura ain't lookin' so hot, though."

Quinlan twisted in his seat to peer through the grating. He saw Laura hunched over, cradling her head in both hands.

"Laura, do you have your pills?" Fet noted that the typical aloofness was gone from the Born's voice. Instead he sounded...concerned. Almost gentle. Fet's eyebrows rose.

"I'm okay," came her weak reply.

"Laura..."

She lifted her head and threw him a determined scowl. "I can do this."

Quinlan regarded her for a moment, then nodded and turned to face the front again.

They drove on until the Brooklyn bridge came into view. Fet parked the van in a convenient alley. "We better gear up for this."

While the guys armed themselves and worked out their next plan of action, Laura leaned against the side of the van with her eyes closed. There were fewer people in this area, many of whom were asleep. That made it a lot easier on her. Thank god her telepathy had a limited range of about twenty feet. Otherwise this city would eat her alive.

She smiled at a familiar hum and opened her eyes to find Quinlan standing before her. Even without telepathy, his worry for her was pretty obvious.

"I'm fine," she reassured him, "I've had a lot of practice the last few months. I know how much I can handle."

He nodded slowly. "But you still have the Ephemerol."

She retrieved the bottle from her pocket, shook it to make the pills rattle. Somewhat mollified, Quinlan turned his attention to the next plan of attack. The Brooklyn Bridge seemed the best option for crossing into Manhattan. It had the least population density, which meant fewer strigoi to deal with. Thus armed and ready, the four of them got back into the vehicle and headed for the bridge.

They stopped again at the Brooklyn Bridge Promenade to scope out any possible obstacles from a safe distance. Fet brought a pair of night vision binoculars up to his eyes and frowned at what he saw. "The checkpoint on this side's deserted. So's the Manhattan side."

This was not good. The Master would never leave the way to the island vulnerable like that. It couldn't be anything besides a trap.

"Whatever we do," Roman glanced around anxiously, "we can't keep hanging around here."

"What d'you think, Born-o?" Fet queried, still peering through the binocs. Then he jerked them from his eyes as a flash of light almost blinded him. He and the others gaped at the explosions that destroyed both ends of the bridge and caused the center to collapse into the river. Seconds later, the distant sounds of other explosions reached their ears. Within moments every bridge and tunnel that led into Manhattan was demolished.

"Ho-lee shit," Roman breathed.

Jaws clenched in rage, Vasiliy kicked over a nearby trash can. "Goddammit!"

By contrast, Quinlan stared quietly at the destruction, his expression unreadable. He felt a light touch at his arm, turned to meet Laura's equally calm gaze.

"The Master's panicking, isn't he?"

Quinlan nodded. "Yes. He is."

And he smiled.


	11. XI. The Power of the Beast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've included my own hypothesis about the whole "can't cross moving water" thing, because not being able to make sense of it was driving me crazy. So, here's how I rationalized this bizarre quirk of the vampires in a way that makes perfect sense to me. Let me know what you guys think!

With the tunnels and bridges all out of play, there was only one option left to get to Manhattan. As it turned out, stealing a boat was easy. Reaching their destination without getting caught was another matter. All of the piers were bound to be guarded. But, fortunately, they had an ace up their sleeve in the form of Quinlan. Now that he was able to drink his fill from any collaborators they encountered, the Born was pretty much unstoppable.

Well, unstoppable except for the moving water.

"So you can't even drive the boat?" Laura asked while they finished securing the nuke down in the hold. "I mean, can't you learn how?"

While not thrilled with having the subject brought up again, Quinlan nevertheless answered, "It is not a matter of operating the controls."

"Then what is it?" she pressed, "Why can't you pilot a boat or cross a lousy bridge?"

He tightened the final strap on the warhead with a little more force than necessary. "Because I cannot cross moving water."

"You wouldn't be crossing the water," Laura argued as she followed him up the steps to the top deck, "You'd be crossing a nice, sturdy bridge _over_ the water. Haven't you even tried?"

"Tried what?" Roman asked from his spot at the controls. While he assured him he could do it, he was less familiar with watercraft than planes. Hence the scrutinizing.

"Crossed a bridge on his own," Laura answered.

Roman looked at the strigoi hybrid in surprise. "You seriously can't even cross a bridge by yourself?"

"No," Quinlan answered wearily. Then to Laura, "And of course I have tried."

By then Fet had walked in on the conversation and let his curiosity get the better of him. "So what happened?"

The Born glared. "Should we not be getting underway."

"I think we can spare a coupla minutes to hear your answer." The exterminator grinned smugly.

With a scoff, Quinlan finally gave in. "Fine. When I tried to cross a bridge on my own, I froze."

"Froze?" Laura frowned, "You mean you got scared?"

"No, I mean I simply could not force by body to take another step forward. It's a physical compulsion. I _can not_ willfully cross moving water."

"Still doesn't explain why," Roman pointed out.

Quinlan sighed, "It has to do with the blood worms. There was a time, very long ago, when they were extremely vulnerable to drowning. Forcing their hosts to avoid moving water was a form of self-preservation. They've since evolved to overcome this weakness, but the instinct still remains."

Laura was confused. "But you don't have the worms."

"I have the virus, which the worms carry," he stated.

Fet's eyes widened in comprehension. "A virus that alters human DNA."

The Born inclined his head. "Yes."

"So it's a genetic thing?" Laura mulled it over. "That sucks."

Quinlan's mouth quirked, "Yes, it does."

Mystery solved, they launched the boat and set out across the river. Quinlan, Fet, and Laura went belowdecks to keep out of sight. Seated beside the half-strigoi, Laura leaned over to whisper conspiratorially, "I figured it out."

"Figured what out?" he muttered, sounding disinterested.

"Why it was like pulling teeth to get a straight answer from you." She smirked knowingly. "You don't like admitting there's something about yourself that you have no control over."

Quinlan released a long exhale through his nose. "It's not a pleasant experience, being a slave to one's biology."

"Everybody goes through that," she told him, "It's called puberty."

Quinlan snorted and shook his head, amused.

When they docked at Pier 16 in lower Manhattan, Quinlan dispensed with the river patrol officers with his usual deadly efficiency. The warhead was then loaded into yet another commandeered van and Fet got behind the wheel. "My turn to drive."

The nighttime streets were eerily vacant, only an occasional strigoi sentry to punctuate the emptiness.

"Where the hell is everybody?" Fet wondered.

Quinlan speculated, "Maybe they've been sequestered." His pale eyes took in the desolation beyond the van's window. "Rome was like this for a time," he said, "Back in the fourteenth century."

It was always weird to hear the Born make such casual references to ancient history, Fet mused. "What for? The Plague?"

The look Quinlan gave him was heavy with significance.

_Oh..._

The grating partition was slid aside so that Roman could get a better view. He squinted through the windshield at the prominent road signs. "Wall Street? Where are you taking us, man?"

Fet replied, "The safest place to park the nuke that I could think of."

He brought them to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Roman was certainly excited by this. "The government kept a shit ton of gold here, right?"

Laura squeezed up beside Roman to get a look at the imposing building. "Think it's all still there?"

"Doesn't matter," Quinlan responded, "Gold is worthless now."

"Yeah, but the building's still set up to protect it," Vasiliy said as he parked the van inside the bank's enclosed loading dock.

As they got out of the vehicle, Roman voiced a concern, "You really think the nuke's gonna be safe just sitting here while we go find your friends? I mean, what if somebody comes poking around?"

"That's an excellent point, Roman," Fet declared. He then handed the former soldier a rifle and handheld radio. "Keep it set to channel two," he said with a wink.

Roman sputtered, "Whoa, no! Huh-uh! This is not a good idea."

Behind him, Quinlan inquired, "Have you so little faith in your own abilities?"

"No," Roman frowned at him, "I just feel like y'all are leaving me here to die."

Vasiliy scoffed, "Only if you die of boredom." Seeing the guy needed more reassurance, he added, "Look, we'll send word as soon as we can. Don't worry so much, okay?" He thumped Roman on the shoulder and sauntered away.

Quinlan approached Laura, who waited near the exit. Her face was wan and sunken, but she seemed to have a better hold of herself. He decided to keep his concern for her to himself for the time being.

"So, where are we going?" she asked as she followed him and Fet out into the empty streets.

"There are a number of sites where the others might be that were chosen before Fet and I left the city."

"Cool. Where's the first one?"

Their first—and as it turned out, only—stop was the Met Cloisters in upper Manhattan. The Cloisters was a museum of medieval art, which meant the place was made up to look like a castle. They found the lock on the main gate broken, which they took as a good sign. When they entered the museum, they were met by a young Latino man with a gun.

"Gus?" Fet called out, surprised.

Augustin Elizalde lowered his weapon. "You guys made it back."

"Yeah, and I'm guessin' the Professor and Dutch are here?"

Gus nodded, "Yeah. C'mon."

As they followed him down the hall, Laura and Quinlan exchanged wordless glances. Something felt off. Gus's behavior had a solemn quality to it which did not bode well.

Gus pushed open a set of double doors to reveal a large room lit by numerous candles. He announced to the room's occupants, "You got visitors."

Fet's grin broadened at seeing not just Velders and Setrakian, but Ephraim Goodweather as well. "Hey!"

Eph and Dutch didn't respond to his greeting. They didn't even look happy or relieved to see him. In fact, Dutch seemed to be fighting tears. And as for Setrakian, the old man stood with his back to the new arrivals, leaning heavily on a table littered with papers. His ragged breaths echoed in the chamber.

"What's goin' on?" a slightly worried Fet asked. While he stepped further into the room, his two companions hung back by the door.

Laura felt the bottom fall out of her stomach at the familiar, grating buzz she sensed emanating from the Professor's mind. Not as strong as a fully turned strigoi, but still unmistakeable. She reached out to grasp Quinlan's sleeve. When he turned to her, she whispered, "I'm so sorry."

Meanwhile, Vasiliy approached the old man, "Sorry it took so long, Professor. But we finally got your—"

He'd come to Setrakian's side and finally saw the state of him. Face bloodied by numerous deep wounds, skin wan and drawn, sunken red eyes, and the telltale movements of worms slithering just beneath his skin. Fet breathed, "This can't be happening."

Setrakian's legs buckled. Fet and Gus caught his fall and gently sat him in a nearby chair. He looked up at them all, at Quinlan standing in the shadows, at the unfamiliar woman beside him. Setrakian knew without being told that she was the Scanner. The Voice of God. He needed to tell her...to tell all of them...

"I have," he rasped," tried to write down all I could." Loose pages rustled in his trembling grasp. "But I...I have no time left. Now you all must listen."

And listen they did. They'd never been so attentive to his words before. Pity it took his impending demise to get them to quit arguing with him, he mused.

"All this time I have been looking at the _Lumen_ through the prism of what I've wanted to find there. A concrete way of killing the Master. But...I was wrong."

The others were confused, anxious. They wanted to bombard him with questions, but they bit their tongues instead and let him continue.

Setrakian fought to keep his thoughts in order while he explained, "I have gone back in and I understand now what we must do. We have to separate the Master from his collaborators." He lifted the pages in his hands to read from them. "The _Lumen_ says, _'The power of the Beast resides not within itself, but within its limbs. Those who willingly do its bidding and provide its sustenance.'_ "

Humans who betrayed their own species for selfish gain. The baton-wielders, the bureaucrats, the people who kept the entire Partnership running and kept the masses compliant.

"Once we cut them away, he will be weakened," the Professor concluded, "We will then be able to strike, but this last move will come at a cost. It requires an act of...self-sacrifice." He held out one of the pages as if to let them see for themselves, but of course none of the others—except perhaps Quinlan—could understand the ancient writing.

"Professor," Fet knelt before him, intense with worry, "What about the nuke? And Laura?" He pointed towards the woman by the door. "What's her part in all this?"

"Please," the dying man rasped," don't let the work I've done be in vain. Promise me."

Vasiliy struggled against tears. "Okay. I promise."

Grateful, Setrakian gripped the other man's hand. Then an agonizing roar throbbed in his skull. The Master's will threatened to overcome him. With fumbling hands, he reached for his cane. Fet and Elizalde helped him to stand. His reddened eyes sought out the Born, motionless and apart, and he offered the cane to the silent hybrid hilt first.

Laura squeezed Quinlan's arm, then let him go. She hung back while he stepped forward to accept the cane, watched Setrakian let himself fall to his knees while the others looked on. Her head rang with their collective sorrow. Even Quinlan, ever the stoic, grieved for this man he considered a friend.

The cane's hidden blade sang as it was drawn from its sheath. Setrakian allowed himself one last look of farewell to his comrades, then nodded in readiness. Quinlan didn't hesitate. In one swift swing of the blade, he ended the Professor's life.

Dutch turned away with a sob, Eph averted his eyes, and Gus and Fet stared down at the ground. Only Laura saw Quinlan shut his eyes for a moment, his only outward sign of grief.

* * *

They buried Setrakian in a wooded area not far from the Cloisters. It was isolated enough that they dared to light a small fire against the night's pitch blackness. They all stared at the bare mound that was their friend's grave, his hat a simple marker atop it.

"Does anyone wanna say something?" Ephraim's voice shattered the silence.

No one else could think of anything, so Quinlan stepped up, still holding Setrakian's cane. His somber voice began, "I have been a witness to human mortality for more than two thousand years. I know that a single human life is, too often, just a flicker in the darkness. We should not mourn this man. His death was inevitable. Instead, we should remember what it is that he showed us." He paused, as if for dramatic effect, though Laura knew it was really to collect himself. When he next spoke, there was a tightness in his voice that wasn't there before. It almost sounded like the half-strigoi was in pain. "He showed us that the real impact of a life depends on will. The determination to keep on fighting no matter the cost. His life was a beacon for all of us."

He abruptly turned to face Vasiliy. "Mr. Fet," he held the cane out to him, "I believe he would want you to have this. To carry on his work."

Clearly surprised by the gesture, Fet hesitantly accepted the ornate weapon. He clutched it like a talisman while they all stood for a moment in silence. Then, as if given an unseen cue, the group began to wander off to where Gus's van waited to transport them to another place of safety. Only Quinlan lingered over the grave. The flickers of the dying fire cast the angles of his face in deep shadow, his pale eyes all but invisible beneath his brow. It suited his mood.

He twitched at the unexpected feel of his hand grasped by a smaller one. Slender fingers laced between his own, an intimate act, despite the fact that they both wore gloves.

"I'm tired of releasing people that I care about," Quinlan murmured hoarsely.

Laura squeezed his hand. "I wish I could've known him."

"He would have admired you." He looked to her and some of the pain eased from his stark features. Quinlan knew the last few hours must have been difficult for her. So many more thoughts to cope with, full of grief and rage and fear. Yet she bore it all without complaint. In many ways, she was the strongest human he'd ever known.

They finally left the grave to join the others waiting by the stolen Partnership van. The place Gus drove them to used to be the city's Department of Public Works Water Works Facility and served as a base of operations for a group of former NYPD cops who were muscling their way into the black market until Gus and his crew wiped them out. There were a lot of supplies left in the old haunt that Gus and his people hadn't gotten around to relocating. Gus gave permission to his guests to make use of whatever they needed.

Laura dug a big spoonful of peanut butter out of a jar she found in the well stocked pantry and stuffed it into her mouth. Her eyes closed as she moaned in pleasure. It had been ages since she tasted the stuff and that first sticky mouthful was pure bliss. She just wished she had some milk to wash it down.

She glanced at the coffee thermos on the table a few feet away. Fet and Dutch were seated at that same table poring over Setrakian's hastily scrawled notes while Eph stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down on another stack of loose pages. Laura wondered how much they'd mind her interrupting for a drink from the thermos.

"What do you think?" Dutch suddenly asked.

Vasiliy sighed over the papers in his hands, shook his head. "I think I just spent nine months getting a nuke and a telepathic superwoman for the old man and I'm wondering how they fit into all this. I mean, I don't see anything." He let the pages drop onto the table, frustration straining his features. "Where's the Face of God in all this? Or the Voice of God?"

"Setrakian said he was wrong about all that," Dutch murmured into the coffee mug she cradled in her hands.

"Wrong how?" Laura managed to ask around her mouthful of peanut butter.

The hacker sighed, "I'm not sure."

Eph spoke up, "He was caught up in this idea of cutting the Master off from his collaborators. You heard him."

"Yes, we did."

All eyes turned to the half-strigoi standing across the room from them.

"And with all due respect, he may not have been in his right mind at the time," Quinlan cautioned them, "It's possible that the voice we heard wasn't his at all, but the Master trying to lead us astray."

Laura shook her head and finally managed to swallow. "I wasn't picking up the Master's thoughts from him. And I don't think Setrakian was as crazy as he sounded at the end."

Quinlan didn't look reassured. "Well, that's fine, but it's not about what we think. It's about what we know. And we know that a bomb wiped out the Ancients."

"No, we _don't_ know that," Goodweather countered, "We _presume_ that. What we _know_ is that his last bomb killed thousands of people, then triggered a nuclear war that killed millions of people and plunged us into nuclear winter. So you can probably understand why I'm a little wary of setting off another one."

Fet rubbed his tired eyes. "Alright, so what do we do now? We know that sunlight won't kill him," he counted off on his fingers, "Cutting off his head doesn't work, and neither does putting him in a box. So...?"

A frustrated growl escaped Quinlan's throat. "It's astonishing to me that we're still debating this. The Master's clearly afraid of us attacking him with a nuke. He just blew every bridge and tunnel into Manhattan to try and keep us from bringing one anywhere near him."

"That may be true, but I agree with Eph," Dutch said, "Vaporizing a city full of people isn't the way to save humanity."

The Born scoffed, "Most of those people are working with the Partnership. If you're so keen on doing what Setrakian said, cutting off the Master's collaborators, then I think setting off a nuclear bomb is an excellent way to do that."

Vasiliy reluctantly conceded his point, "He did say there'd be a cost to killing the Master."

"Yeah, some sort of self-sacrifice," Eph retorted, "Not mass annihilation!"

Fet rose from his chair to loom over the shorter man. "What's your idea, Doc?" he challenged, "C'mon, dazzle us." When Goodweather didn't reply, the ratcatcher sneered, "You got nothing, huh? But you want us to toss out the nuke on your say so."

Angrily the doctor yelled back, "You made a promise to Setrakian! Doesn't that mean anything to you?" His words clearly hit a nerve, to judge from the larger man's slight wince.

Quinlan lost all patience and headed for the door. "This is a waste of time."

"Where are you going?" Laura called after him, a rising sense of dread churning her stomach.

"To get the bomb."

"Whoa, hang on!" Vasiliy hurried to block his path, "What're you gonna do? Just set it off and hope for the best? We don't even know where the Master is yet."

"How do you propose we find him? Should we pass out fliers?" Quinlan's voice reverberated with exasperation, "We know the Master is somewhere on the island. If we set the bomb to its highest yield, the odds of killing him are good."

Laura was appalled. His obsession with killing the Master, coupled with the grief over Setrakian's death, clouded the Born's normally rational thoughts. At that moment he didn't care how many other lives were wiped out in the process.

"You're not setting off that nuke!" Ephraim cried.

Quinlan fixed his cold gaze on him. "Do you really think you can stop me, Doctor?"

"Quinlan!" Laura's distraught voice jarred him. He looked at the anxious woman who pleaded, "Please don't."

To the amazement of the others, they saw a flicker of shame cross the Born's expression. He made no further move to leave.

An idea came to Dutch in the resulting silence. "I think I have a way to find the Master."

* * *

They were going to kidnap Sanjay Desai, the Master's chief human lackey. If anyone knew the ancient vampire's location, it would be him.

"He works at the Partnership medical facility where Setrakian and I were held," Dutch told them.

Fet nodded thoughtfully. "Taking a collaborator. That's what the old man wanted us to do."

"Not only that," Dutch added, "but we can also get everyone out of that horrible place."

The team spent the next several hours planning their mission. Fet, Ephraim, Quinlan, and Dutch, along with Gus and his crew, would all be involved. Quinlan would smuggle everyone into the facility by passing as a strigoi delivering a vanload of prisoners for drainage. Once inside, Eph would make his way to the control room to release all the electronic locks on the doors, allowing Dutch and Fet to get to Desai without hindrance, as well as free all the women in the B-positive breeding program. Meanwhile, Quinlan, Gus, and the rest would liberate the prisoners from drainage.

As for Laura, she was staying behind at the hideout to await their return. "I won't be much help out there," she reasoned, "I'm not much of a fighter. And anyway, if that place is half as bad as Dutch says..." She shuddered. "I couldn't handle all those people's suffering."

"One of us should remain here with you," Quinlan stated. He did not like the idea of her being left on her own.

Laura declined before anyone had a chance to volunteer. "You guys are gonna need everybody for this mission. I'll be fine," she assured the half-strigoi," I'm not helpless, you know."

"I know." Yet he still looked worried.

While the rest of the team was busy arming themselves, Eph approached Laura in the impromptu lounge area. "Quinlan said you were shot recently."

She smirked, "He just casually mentioned that, huh?"

"I think be both know that 'casual' isn't in his vocabulary," the doctor smiled. "C'mon, let me take a look."

He led her to where the medical supplies were kept. Laura sat on a folding chair and lifted her shirt. Eph carefully removed the bandages, then knelt to examine the entry and exit wounds.

"Looks good," he declared after a couple of minutes of gentle prodding, "The wounds are healing nicely. No signs of infection. We can probably remove the stitches in a few more days."

He put fresh bandages on her and straightened.

"Thanks, Doc." Laura tugged her shirt back down.

"Kinda weird seeing Quinlan show concern for someone," Ephraim remarked while he put away the unused medical items, "Doesn't exactly give the impression that he's the sentimental type."

"Maybe he's just ensuring that one of the keys to defeating the Master is in top form," she half joked, "That magic book you all keep referencing insisted you guys need the Voice of God as well as the Face of God, right?"

Goodweather seemed to give it some thought. He shook his head. "That might be the excuse he'd give if I asked him, but...I don't think that's it. I think he might actually care about you."

He sounded so surprised by the concept that Laura had to laugh. A moment later she became more subdued. "I care about him," she admitted without discomfort, "He's not as cold-hearted as he pretends to be. He cares about you and the others, too."

"You picked that up from his thoughts?" Eph asked in curiosity.

Laura shrugged. "A little. The longer I'm around somebody, the better I can understand their surface thoughts. I've been with him and Fet for months, so I understand what they think a lot easier than I can understand you or Dutch or Gus."

Eph casually leaned against a cabinet and crossed his arms. "I read a few papers on Scanners back in med school, before I decided to become an epidemiologist. I'm guessing by your age, you're second generation?"

"My dad was a Scanner," Laura told him.

"How far away can you detect someone's thoughts?"

"About twenty feet. Which definitely makes it easier being in a city," she said with a slight laugh, "I haven't taken my meds since the first nukes hit. I'm surprised it hasn't been tougher for me."

"Ever scan someone before?"

Her smile waned. "By accident, when I was a baby. And there was this soldier who attacked us when we found a missile silo that still had its payload." She chewed her lip. "I also scanned a strig when we got a missing part for the nuke," she added.

Ephraim's eyebrows rose. "What was that like?"

Laura grimaced. "Not fun."

"Well, let's hope you'll be strong enough to take on the Master." The doctor checked his watch and straightened from his slouch. "Gonna head out soon. I need to get ready."

"Okay. Thanks again for..." she indicated her injured side.

"You're welcome." With a brief smile, Eph went to join the rest of the group.

The others were boarding the stolen van when Laura approached Quinlan.

"So, uh, just wanted to say good luck," she smiled crookedly, "'Cept you probably don't believe in luck, do you?"

Quinlan's face remained as impassive as ever, though the warm buzz of his thoughts belied his seeming indifference. "Luck is not required," he tilted his head," as long as we are sufficiently armed and skilled for the task."

"Which you...are?" A teasing grin.

His mouth quirked the barest second, then he sobered. "If we should not return—"

"No," Laura interrupted, "We're not going there."

Quinlan persisted, "You should prepare yourself for the possibility..."

This time she hugged him. Quinlan was so startled by this unexpected action that he stood mute, arms at his sides, until she pulled away.

"See ya when you get back!" With a carefree wave, Laura turned and strolled jauntily back into the hideout.

Quinlan stared after her until she vanished into the building before he let out a bemused huff and climbed into the van's cab. The engine growled to life and they were off.

* * *

In spite of her earlier show of confidence, Laura waited anxiously for their return. She took advantage of the hideout's generous pantry to indulge in some nervous snacking. She emptied a couple of cans of corn and tuna, then finished off the jar of peanut butter. After that she lingered by the window until, finally, she glimpsed the dark hulk of a van approaching with its headlights dimmed. Laura dashed down to the attached garage to greet them.

The mission was a success. Not only had the team captured Desai and freed all the prisoners from the facility, but they didn't lose a single member of their group.

Laura watched as Fet and Eph dragged their unconscious captive out of the back of the vehicle and tied him to a chair. There was a bag over the man's head and blood oozed from a stab wound on his right foot. Dutch also looked a little worse for wear with a split lip, but no one else was harmed. Not physically, anyway. Laura picked up more than a few grim thoughts about what they all saw at the drainage facility. Images of people in cages, hanging alive from hooks, processed like cattle in a slaughterhouse.

Some of the strongest imagery came from the silent half-strigoi who almost immediately stormed out of the room, unnoticed by his compatriots. Laura followed him down a narrow hall into what used to be an office, complete with desk and computer, filing cabinets, and a couch. With unnecessary force, Quinlan shoved the abandoned desk aside. It screeched across the floor and slammed against the far wall. The old paperwork that littered its surface fluttered to the tiled floor and the computer's monitor wobbled, but didn't fall over. Quinlan then grabbed the office chair as if to throw it, then changed his mind and simply let it roll away on its castors. His shoulders were unusually tense as he stood with his back to Laura.

"I have always known the Master was evil," Quinlan murmured, eyes fixed to the wall, "but what I witnessed in that place...the sheer _efficiency_ of it... It was too impersonal to even label it butchery."

He finally looked over his shoulder at Laura, who lingered in the doorway. The bleakness in his gaze made her heart clench.

"It is too obscene for words," he said in a voice that barely sounded human. His stinger writhed in distress, clicking and reverberating loudly in his throat and chest.

Laura didn't say a word. There was nothing she could say that would help. Instead, she entered the room, circled around to stand before him, and put her arms around him. This time, Quinlan returned the embrace.

* * *

Later that night, a member of Gus's crew said he encountered a boy in one of the black markets who was looking for Dr. Goodweather. It might have been Zack, miraculously escaped from the Master. It might also have been a trap. But Eph had to know for sure. So he went, and returned soon after with his blindfolded son in tow.


	12. XII. The Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter yet. Hope you all enjoy it, especially what happens around the end.

Zack was locked in a storage room before his blindfold was removed. The makeshift cell contained only a cot, which the boy made immediate use of. He didn't wake until his father brought him some food, and as soon as he ate he went right back to sleep without answering any of Eph's questions.

Everyone was suspicious, and with good reason. Even Ephraim was suspicious. Quinlan was just the most vocal about it. Not only about Zack, but about Eph's lack of objectivity when it came to his son. The Born said as much shortly after Zack was locked away in the cell, confronting the doctor when he returned to the lounge area. Ephraim did not appreciate the criticism.

"You think in a moment of emotion I'm gonna tell him where the bomb's hidden?" the doctor challenged.

"Your attachment to your son has clouded your judgment before," Quinlan reminded him.

"Not this time." Goodweather glared at the Born. "He can still tell us where the Master is."

"Assuming he wasn't sent here to lie to us. Trick us."

"That's what I intend to find out."

"We already have a way to find out." Quinlan's pale gaze turned to the others in the room, who'd been uncomfortably listening to their argument. Laura tensed when she realized his gaze was focused on her.

"Whoa, wait a sec..."

"She is _not_ scanning my son!" Ephraim snapped.

"Don't worry, I don't plan to," she was quick to assure him.

But the Born was adamant, "It is the only way to be certain of the boy's intentions."

"It's also a violation," Laura argued, "People's brains always react violently when a Scanner's mind links with theirs. They can't help but try to fight back against something that invasive."

"We can't afford the luxury of moral objections," Quinlan insisted, "There is too much at stake."

Laura stared at him. Her tone, when she responded, had a decisiveness she'd never used before. It left no room for doubt that she would not be convinced otherwise. "I am not raping a kid's mind just because he _might_ be lying."

A muscle in the hybrid's cheek twitched, but to the rest of the group's surprised relief, he let the matter drop.

Fet spoke up, "Okay, so what about Desai? You willing to scan him?"

"We already know that wanker's guilty," Dutch stated venomously.

Laura shifted in her seat, her expression uneasy. "I...I think maybe that should be a last resort."

"You don't think you can do it?" queried Gus.

"I'm just not comfortable—"

"We all gotta do things we're not comfortable with," Fet interjected, not unkindly, "We brought you here for a reason, Laura. You gotta use that Scanner power of yours at some point."

"And I will," she stated, "When I _have to_."

Vasiliy looked like he was about to press the issue when Dutch broke in, "It's okay. Desai's such a coward, he's bound to crack under interrogation."

The hacker seemed eager to put that theory to the test. As soon as their prisoner showed signs of rousing, she and Fet dragged him, chair and all, into one of the many empty utility rooms to begin their questioning. Meantime, Gus and his men went to back up Roman at the Federal Exchange, and Eph continued to try and glean any information from his son. Which left Laura and Quinlan alone in the main room.

The Born observed the woman slumped guiltily in a chair, chin resting on her drawn-up knees. She appeared lost in thought, unaware that he was even there. Yet she didn't stir when Quinlan broke the silence. "Why do you keep resisting when we ask you to use your ability?"

Laura chewed her lip for a moment. "I just don't feel like I'm ready."

"That is a weak excuse." Quinlan cocked his head. "You're afraid to do it. Why?"

"I'm..." A long, weary sigh passed her lips. Shoulders slumped in resignation, she finally answered, "Y'know how I said I never scanned a person besides that soldier and my mom?"

"Yes," Quinlan prompted.

"I lied. I _did_ scan somebody else when I was thirteen." Laura straightened her back as she visibly gathered herself. "There was this guy I had a crush on. Real popular jock type, so of course he barely knew I existed. I just wanted him to notice me, so...I told him I was a Scanner. I dunno, I guess I thought it'd impress him. But he didn't believe me. Why would he? So he dared me to prove it." Laura swallowed, blinked a few times. "I skipped my meds that night," she continued, her voice unsteady, "and the next morning I went right over to him just outside the school's front doors and...and I..." Her chin trembled. "He almost died. He was in the hospital for weeks, in the psych ward, 'cause he wouldn't stop screaming. All his friends knew it was my fault. They all saw it. Dad finally had to move us to a whole other State. But the worst part...the worst part was..."

Quinlan gazed at her in understanding. "The worst part was that you enjoyed it."

Laura wiped the tears from her eyes on her sleeve, sniffled and nodded. "I couldn't stop," she choked, "I didn't wanna stop. And I hurt him." More tears rolled down her cheeks. She let her forehead drop to her upraised knees as she struggled to contain her sobs.

Quinlan moved to kneel beside her and waited until her crying subsided. When she calmed enough to lift her watery eyes to him, he told her, "I am not very good at offering comfort. All I can tell you is there are far more guilty people in this world than you. You shouldn't dwell on it."

Laura stared at him. "You're right," her voice rasped, "You're not good at comforting."

His mouth quirked a little at her quip. "One thing I've learned from many centuries of regrets," he continued, "is that whipping your own back won't make you stronger. It only distracts you."

Lips pursed, she mulled over his words, then slowly nodded. "You're right."

"I know I'm right."

"Shut up!" she laughed while Quinlan's mouth curved in a slight but genuine smile.

Laura's expression sobered a few seconds ahead of Dutch and Fet's arrival. Fet was supporting the visibly upset woman. She was trembling and the knuckles of her right hand were scraped raw.

"What happened?" Quinlan asked, though he already guessed the answer.

"Nothin' much," the exterminator replied as he led Dutch to the makeshift infirmary, "Just a little disagreement between Dutch's fist and Desai's face."

Laura and Quinlan followed them into the smaller room. Dutch sat on the counter while Fet retrieved a first aid kit and a bottle of "medicinal" whiskey. He gently cleaned her bloodied knuckles with antiseptic, then handed over the whiskey. Dutch's shaking hands steadied a little after the first hefty pull from the bottle.

"Guess the interrogation's not going so well," Laura surmised.

Fet gave her a wry look, but his thoughts were almost as turbulent as Dutch's. Whatever that guy said to them, it left them both shaken.

"It's like talking to someone from an alternate universe," Dutch quavered, "He's completely convinced himself that he's some kind of hero."

Fet shrugged, "How else could he live with himself? He can't afford to face the truth."

It made sense. Very few people could ever truly be labeled evil. They needed to rationalize their actions, justify them somehow, especially when those actions were as heinous as Desai's.

"Nothing we say will convince him to betray the Master," Dutch lamented.

"Perhaps you should find another way to persuade him," Quinlan suggested.

Fet's eyes narrowed at the Born. "Like what? Torture?"

"W-What about his wife?" Dutch suddenly blurted, "If Desai cares about anyone besides himself, maybe it's her."

Quinlan frowned, but only because he was thinking it over. "Do you know where she is?"

Relieved the hacker told him where all the top collaborators were housed.

It didn't take long for the Born to return from his brief excursion with a terrified woman in tow. Like her husband, Selah Desai was of Eastern Indian descent. She was dressed in satin pajamas and a floral robe, having been dragged from her bed. Quinlan brought her to one of the storerooms down the hall from where Desai was kept. Laura followed them in. She would keep watch over the new prisoner until Desai was brought in. If threatening his wife failed to break him, then Laura's other task would come into play.

"Why are you doing this?" Selah cried.

Laura glanced at the frightened woman huddled in a corner of the room. She fled there the second Quinlan released her from his iron grip and hadn't moved from that spot since. The woman's thoughts were a chaotic swirl of fear, suspicion, and guilt.

"It's about your husband," Laura said. Selah's guilt spiked. She might not have known the gory details of her husband's work, but she figured out enough to be sickened by it as well as by her own complicity. Yet she was too afraid of the alternatives to do anything about it, so Mrs. Desai kept silent and lived with a tortured conscience.

"I..I don't know anything about what my husband does."

Laura didn't bother to call her out on the half-lie. "Doesn't matter. We just need you to convince him to tell us what we need to know. Just seeing you here might be enough."

Selah hugged herself. "And if it's not enough?"

A pitying look was all she got in reply.

Minutes trickled by. Laura sat herself on one of the metal barrels stored in the room. The backs of her heels thumped against the barrel's side. _Clang...clang...clang..._

The distant sounds of shouting echoed down the hall outside, getting louder as the person yelling neared. Soon it was easy to make out the desperate words. "You don't wanna do this! Please! I swear you don't wanna kill me!"

Laura hopped down from her perch and pushed the door open. A moment later Quinlan appeared dragging Desai behind him by the man's jacket collar. He casually flung the collaborator into the room and Desai rolled across the hard floor with a grunt.

"Sanjay!" His wife hurried to his side. Desai gaped at her, then struggled to his feet.

"How dare you," he growled at the Born, as well as Dutch and Fet, who'd followed them into the room. "Selah has nothing to do with this!"

"Your wife profited from the people you tortured and killed," Dutch coldly stated, "She's just as guilty as you are."

Stricken, Desai's wife lowered her eyes in shame. She flinched when Quinlan approached her.

"We're finished debating the moral ramifications," the half-strigoi declared. He reached out to delicately brush her long hair aside and expose her neck. Selah cringed.

"This woman may be all you love in the world, but to me..." his eyes closed as he breathed in the scent of her blood, "she's lunch."

Selah gasped in pain as Quinlan suddenly grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back. Desai's eyes widened in alarm. "No, no, no..."

"Tell us where the Master is," Quinlan calmly threatened, "or I drink her."

"Sanjay!"

The collaborator shook his head. "I can't. If I tell them," he said to his terrified wife, "the Master will come after us. I'm so sorry this is happening, but you have to believe I did everything I could to protect you."

Back by the door, Laura shared an incredulous look with Fet and Dutch. _He's really gonna let her die to protect himself._

"Sanjay, please!" Selah begged while Quinlan allowed his stinger to unfurl and reach menacingly towards her vulnerable throat.

Laura finally spoke up, "Stop. He's not gonna talk."

Quinlan drew his stinger back in and released the sobbing woman. Selah ran to the other side of the room and crouched amidst the abandoned boxes like a frightened animal.

"You good with this?" Vasiliy asked.

Laura heaved a sigh, "No, but we're out of options." She approached the captive.

Desai stared at the unassuming woman in puzzled suspicion. "W-What're you gonna do?"

She stared at him in anger and with more than a little trepidation for what she was about to do. "You should've just told us."

Her mind lashed out and slammed into his like a physical blow. Desai reeled from the invasion. His nervous system violently struggled to reject this unnatural melding, but only succeeded in increasing his own agony. Muscles spasmed, limbs jerked, blood gushed from his nose, his ears. Veins stood out from his skin until they threatened to burst through. And all the while he felt the intrusive force worm its way through his memories. Thoughts and secrets, self-delusions, none were safe from this other's prodding. And just when it seemed his sanity would crumble from the relentless onslaught, finally, _finally_ , it found what it wanted and retreated.

A deep shudder ran through Laura's body as she forced herself to withdraw from the collaborator's mind. While immersed she was unaware of her surroundings. Now she saw and heard everything with awful clarity. Desai's collapsed body twitching on the floor. Selah's horrified weeping. Fet and Dutch's appalled expressions.

Laura struggled to maintain her composure even as the other's thoughts began to assail her. "The Master's at the Empire State Building," she said, relieved that her voice was steady, "on the hundred and second floor."

"Can you draw the layout?" Quinlan asked, seemingly the least affected by what just happened.

"Yeah, I, uh, I will. I just..." she started for the door, "I need a minute."

She tried to ignore how Dutch and Vasiliy backed away from her when she passed. Desperate in that moment for a semblance of privacy, she hurried to the abandoned office. Once the door was shut behind her, Laura dug the prescription bottle from her pocket. The pills rattled as she struggled with the childproof cap.

"Come on, you—shit!" The lid flew off and the bottle's meager contents scattered onto the floor. Laura dropped to her knees, picked up the first pill she found with trembling fingers, and put it in her mouth. She didn't want to wait for the medication to take effect, so she bit down. The pill's casing cracked open, her mouth flooded with its powdery contents. Laura wanted to gag at the bitter taste, but the tactic worked; the constant din of other minds quickly faded to silence. For the first time in almost a year, the only person inside Laura's head was herself. The silence was as lonesome as it was a relief.

Laura wasn't sure how long she sat there on the floor. When the door opened, she was so startled she almost yelped, no longer used to not sensing someone's approach. Her shoulders relaxed when the Born entered and closed the door behind him. His pale eyes took in the scene: Laura kneeling on the floor, the empty pill bottle in her hand. Wordlessly, he crouched to retrieve a stray pill by his foot. Laura mumbled thanks when he passed it to her. She found the other three pills close by and returned them to the bottle.

"You took one of them," Quinlan observed.

Laura sat herself down on the office's dusty couch. "I needed a break." She stared at the faded label on the pill bottle, turned it slowly in her hand. The cushion beside her dipped as Quinlan seated himself. She waited for him to say something—anything, really—to alleviate the silence. But the Born was never much of a talker. That hadn't mattered to her before, but now that Laura was unable to hear the constant hum of his mind, his taciturn nature suddenly unnerved her. Was he mad that she basically rendered herself useless for the next twelve hours? Or did he understand her need to blot everyone out after what she just did to Desai?

"They're afraid of me," she heard herself speak, "They let themselves think I was harmless, like scanning was just a parlor trick or something. And now..."

"Now they understand how different you are from them," Quinlan's tone betrayed no sympathy, but it reassured her all the same. "You're wrong, however," he added, "They are shocked by what they've witnessed, but they do not fear you."

"Maybe they should. _I_ do." She looked at him, her eyes sorrowful. "It was the same as last time I scanned someone. I didn't wanna stop. I wanted to keep digging into his mind and drain all his thoughts and memories till there was nothing left. It wasn't because of who Desai was or what he did. It had nothing to do with him. It just..." she struggled for the right words, "It felt _good_. Like the best high in the world. I could do whatever I wanted to him, _make_ him do whatever I wanted him to do." She gnawed at her lower lip until she tasted a hint of blood. "I really am a monster," she whispered.

Quinlan's stoic expression didn't change, though his voice held a slight edge when he responded, "You stopped yourself. A monster would have kept going and felt no remorse afterward."

"Like the Master," Laura mused, "Guess that explains why he's scared of me. And you." Her mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. "I'm a threat to his mind and you're a threat to his body. Plus he's a total control freak and we're completely outside of his power."

This was true. Quinlan recalled all the times his father tried to gain control over him. All the manipulations, the twisted head games, the many cruel ways the Master sought to destroy the human half of him. Quinlan's fingers slid into the pocket where his only treasured possession lay. He carefully drew the pendant out and gazed at the two carved images on its surface.

Curious, Laura peered at the small object in his hand. The pendant was gold with an inset of what appeared to be ivory. Two faces were carved in profile facing each other. The details had worn away with time, but Laura could still tell that the cameo on the left was supposed to be Quinlan. Which meant the other image, a woman, had to be the wife he told her about. Just to be sure, she asked him, "Is that Tasa?"

He nodded. "I had this made for her just before her death. Now it is all I have left of her."

He'd carried that tiny thing for all these centuries, never losing it. Laura couldn't imagine possessing something for so long.

"You really love her."

Quinlan noticed her use of the present tense. "I did love her," he confessed, "and our daughter. The handful of years we were together was the only time in my existence that I experienced true joy. But now...I cannot remember their faces, or the sounds of their voices. I know they both had black hair and brown eyes, but I cannot see them. My family has become little more than a story I tell myself as a reminder of what I lost."

He stared at the faded pendant, ran a thumb over its gold edging. "I know that I loved them, but I can no longer feel it."

To an outsider he would seem devoid of emotion, but Laura knew him well enough by now to see the sadness in his eyes. The grief that never went away no matter how many centuries passed or how little he remembered. She reached over to take his hand, prompting a startled look from the half-strigoi. Laura took it as a good sign that he didn't pull away. She interlaced her fingers with his and gave his hand a light squeeze.

"You still love them," she said, "You'll always love them, even if you forget everything else. Time can't take that away from you and neither can the Master."

Quinlan gazed at her in something like wonder. "There are times when you seem wise beyond your years."

A self-deprecating smile appeared on her face. "Actually, I was paraphrasing what my dad said to me when our dog died."

Quinlan laughed. It was brief as it was sudden, but it was real and the first he had uttered since his family was lost to him. Laura's own grin expanded in response. She liked his laugh.

The Born returned the pendant to his pocket, zipped it closed, and stood, still gripping Laura's hand. A light tug urged her to rise as well. "We should rejoin the others," he stated, not without regret.

Laura sighed, "Yeah. I still gotta draw the layout of the Master's nest." She let Quinlan lead her out of the office, down the hall to the main room. It wasn't until she saw the startled looks from the others that she realized she and Quinlan were still holding hands. Yet despite the attention, he didn't release his grip until Dutch brought over a pen and legal pad for Laura to draw on.

It didn't take long to sketch out the basic features. There wasn't much to the Master's nest. Just the door, guarded by two mongrels, the stairs to the observation deck, and the coffin on its pile of worm-ridden loam.

"That's it." Laura capped the pen.

"Not much for interior decorating," Fet remarked.

"You sure that's accurate?" Eph questioned.

Laura shrugged, "As accurate as Desai's memory of it is."

"And there's no way he could've...lied or held anything back?"

She snorted, "Not a chance."

Her answer seemed to satisfy Vasiliy, at least. "Okay, then. We can use this to check Zack's sincerity. He says he wants to cooperate. Let's ask him to draw the nest and see if what he shows us matches."

The doctor pursed his lips, nodded. "I'll go get him."

While he went to retrieve his son, Fet and Dutch shared an awkward look with Laura.

"It's okay if you're freaking out," the Scanner assured them, "Hell, I'm freaking out, and I knew what to expect."

Dutch crossed her arms and shifted her feet. "I just didn't think it'd be so..."

"Scary as hell?"

The hacker nodded. "I mean, I know what all the stuff I read about Scanners said, but still..." She shuddered.

"Seeing's believing," Fet concluded.

Laura watched the two of them, the way the did or didn't look at her, their body language. She'd gotten used to relying on her telepathy to gauge people's moods. It was weird having to rely on just her own two eyes. Still, she was pretty sure they were adjusting to what they saw her do. They weren't afraid of her, or even wary, but they were a bit uncomfortable in her presence. For now, anyway.

Eph returned with Zack. The boy was taller than the snippets of memory Laura had picked up from the doctor. His hair had grown into a thick mop that threatened to cover his eyes. His lanky form was slouched, hands stuffed into his jean pockets. No different from any other kid in his early teens, and yet he'd lived under the Master's influence for months. How accurate were appearances, given that?

"Hey, Fet," Zack quietly greeted the tall Ukranian. His gaze traveled to the silent blonde woman. "Dutch."

Ephraim indicated Quinlan. "And this is—"

"The Born." Zack glanced away from his pale stare.

His father continued, "And this is Laura."

The boy tensed when he looked at her. "You're the Scanner."

So, the Master mentioned her to Zack. Made sense, if he was intended as a spy.

"Shall we get on with it," Quinlan prompted with is usual tact.

Fet held a legal pad in his hand, the same one Laura used earlier, in fact. His discomfort was obvious as he asked the first question, "Zack, do you know where the Master's nest is?"

The boy answered without hesitation, "Yeah, I've been there."

"Where is it?"

"At the top of the Empire State Building."

So far, so good. Fet handed him the pad and pen, asked him to draw it. Zack remained cooperative as he jotted down the layout under everyone's watchful eye. "That's all I can remember," he said a moment later. His drawing obviously matched the one Laura did.

"Zack and our prisoner were kept separate," Fet declared, "Neither knew the other was here or what we were talking about."

"Yes," Quinlan agreed, "It appears he's being truthful." The look he gave the boy was no less suspicious than before. "But then a good spy would tell the truth, or at least a portion of it. To gain our trust."

Zack angrily retorted, "You don't trust me, fine. Lock me back in that cell and leave me there."

Uncertainty lay heavy in the room, even from the Born.

Zack got to his feet and turned to his father. "Can I just go back now?" He sounded weary.

"Sure." Eph led him back to the cell. When he returned, he asked Laura, "Can you tell if he's trustworthy?"

Laura shifted uncomfortably. "Uh, well, the thing is—"

"She took an Ephemerol," Quinlan interjected.

She winced. "Yeah. That."

"You took one of your pills?" Vasiliy blurted, clearly not happy to hear that.

"What happened earlier was...a little too intense."

"How long does the dose last?" Eph asked.

"About twelve hours." She shrugged in apology. "If it's any consolation, I probably wouldn't have gotten much from him anyway." As guarded as Zack looked, he was likely being very careful about what he was thinking in her presence.

"We will just have to proceed under the assumption that the information from both prisoners is accurate," Quinlan stated.

The major obstacle was how to get the bomb to the Empire State Building. They pored over city maps while debating the safest route. Laura excused herself early on once she realized there was nothing she could add, being the only member of the group with zero familiarity with the city. Instead, she kept herself busy in the jerry-rigged kitchenette, heating up cans of soup and keeping everyone supplied with coffee.

After a while, Goodweather went to spend a few minutes with his son. He made a detour to the kitchenette. "Got any sodas? Thought I'd take one to Zack."

Laura checked the mini fridge. "There's cola and a couple of ginger ales."

"I'll take a ginger ale." He accepted the can from her with a nod of thanks.

After he left, Laura brought the refilled coffee thermos out into the main room. Fet and Dutch were still arguing over the map. Quinlan leaned against the wall, arms crossed, head lowered. Either bored or frustrated. Laura didn't blame him either way. It seemed like they were talking in circles at this point.

Fet pointed at a spot on the map, "We could surface from here on Forty-Second Street."

"Then we'd have to steal a vehicle and transfer our payload," Dutch muttered.

An agitated Ephraim marched in at that moment. "We have to go right now," his tormented eyes fixed on Quinlan, "You were right. Zack's working with the Master. I took him up to the roof and he cut his thumb open."

The Born tensed. "That's like setting off a flare."

"Goddammit," Fet whispered, then immediately started grabbing whatever items they needed to take along.

Dutch's expression was full of sympathy. "I'm so sorry, Eph."

"Me too," the doctor replied tersely, already headed for the exit, "But right now, the Master's sending his troops."

Laura put the thermos down and grabbed her coat. She also grabbed Quinlan's longcoat from where he'd draped it over a chair while he retrieved his weapons from another table.

"Where are we going?" Laura asked, "The Federal Reserve?"

Fet nodded, "Yeah, we'll come up with the rest of the plan there."

They wasted no time in abandoning the hideout, leaving the Desais and Zack to whatever fate awaited them once the Master arrived. Fet drove them all in a stolen van to the Federal Reserve where they reunited with Roman, Gus, and the gang. Once everyone was brought up to speed, Roman showed them the nuke, safe and sound in the back of a vehicle.

The former soldier sat himself at the open rear of the van and opened the laptop that controlled the warhead. "What's our target?"

"Empire State Building," Fet told him, "Zack and Desai both confirmed that the Master was nesting there."

"Zack is a tool of the Master," Ephraim argued, "If he told us about the Empire State Building, it's because the Master wanted him to."

Dutch seemed to agree with him. "That means he's moved somewhere else and probably set a trap for us."

"It's possible," Quinlan conceded, "But if it is a trap, we can turn it to our advantage. This is an opportunity we can't afford to ignore."

"Maybe he's counting on that," Laura spoke up, "Us bringing the nuke into the open where he can get at it."

The Born frowned in thought, then turned to Roman. "Is there a way to trigger the bomb remotely?"

"Yeah." Roman picked up a device he obviously cobbled together from various electronics. "I, uh, rigged this up." He handed it to Quinlan with a warning, "Problem is, you can only trigger it from about a thousand yards, which means you're still gonna be in the blast zone."

Quinlan examined the device. "That's not a factor," he said almost absently, "I don't plan to survive." Of their own accord, his eyes shifted to find Laura's devastated gaze.

"This...You can't be serious," she stammered.

"If the Master wants to draw us into a trap," he answered solemnly, "then into his trap I shall go." He turned his attention to the rest of the group. "If I can lure him to me, I'll contact you via radio. You'll then drive the bomb to the base of the building and escape before I trigger the weapon."

"That's a hell of a Hail Mary play there, Born-o," a wide-eyed Fet remarked.

"More like half-assed," Laura snapped. She glared at the Born. "The Master won't be there. You _know_ he won't. You're just so obsessed over getting to him that you're gonna throw your life away and risk the nuke and all of us."

Quinlan calmly retorted, "You have a better idea?"

"At least wait till the Ephemerol wears off," she half pleaded, "I can help. I can use my scanning to hold off any strigs—"

"It'll take hours for your ability to return. The Master could be gone by then."

_"He's not there!"_ Laura was as startled by her outburst as the others were. She tried to calm down. "Don't do this. Don't give him what he wants."

Regret was plain on the hybrid's normally blank expression, but so was his resolve. Before he could say anything, Laura abruptly stormed off, too upset to listen any further.

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Roman cleared his throat and got back to business, "How big a boom are we looking for?"

"We just wanna take out the building," Ephraim answered, obviously unhappy with the whole situation.

Roman tapped the keys on his laptop. "I'll set it to fifteen kilotons. The fire will vaporize the building and leave nothing but a crater a hundred feet deep."

"Jesus Christ," Eph hissed and turned away. He was never okay with setting off the nuke within the city, but at this point it seemed like the least bad option they had.

While Roman programmed the bomb and the others readied themselves for the mission, Quinlan went in search of Laura. He didn't need to look far. She was in a roomy executive's office, seated in an expensive leather chair with her knees drawn up, head resting on her folded arms. She looked up when Quinlan entered and he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or worried by her lack of tears.

"I know this seems reckless and foolish," he began, "But know that I am not blind to the risks. If there is even the slimmest chance that I may finally destroy the Master, I have to try."

"Sure," Laura muttered dully, "You have a destiny to fulfill, right? A nice, handy, bullshit excuse you don't even really believe in."

Quinlan's colorless eyes were sad. "I want it to be over."

"You want to die."

"I do," he admitted without shame, "After two thousand years of fighting, I'm weary of this existence." He hesitated, then knelt in front of her. His hand rested on the arm of her chair. "But I also want to live, to truly have a life. I've tried before and the Master destroyed it. He will never allow me that experience," he paused as his stinger constricted in his throat. He had never admitted this to anyone. Never trusted someone enough to share this hidden desire. But he didn't want to keep it from her, not when the end felt so near. "When I do confront the Master, I will not be fighting simply to end it all. Not anymore. I will fight for the life I was denied. And if I somehow survive once the Master is dead, I would...I want to..."

His sudden, uncharacteristic faltering brought an ache to Laura's heart. She reached over to grip his hand that rested on the chair's arm. He turned his hand so that his fingers closed around hers, the contact seeming to steady him. He spoke barely above a whisper, "I want to share that life with you."

Tears stung Laura's eyes. Her grip on his hand tightened. "I want that, too."

Relieved, Quinlan brought his other hand up to cup the side of her face, then leaned in until their foreheads touched. Eyes closed, he breathed, "I love you."

A laugh escaped her even as the tears began to fall. "I love you, too."

"I should have told you sooner," he murmured in regret.

"No. This is exactly the right time."

He kissed her. It was a clumsy attempt; their noses bumped. Laura laughed and Quinlan decided it was his favorite of all the laughs he heard from her. Their smiles made it all the more tricky for their lips to meet, but they were happy to keep trying. Quinlan hadn't kissed anyone since Tasa. He forgot how much he enjoyed the sensations. The soft lips, the play of tongues, the sharp nip of teeth.

Their arms went around each other, holding them tightly together. The fingers of Quinlan's right hand tangled themselves in Laura's hair. Laura's hand slid over his head, briefly touched the point of his ear, then slipped lower to trace the whorls at his throat. His stinger thrummed in response.

Reluctantly, they finally drew apart. "We should rejoin the others," Quinlan sighed.

Laura nodded, lips pursed. When she relaxed them, they were swollen from their kissing.

The couple stood, still embracing. Neither wanted this moment to end.

"It's still a dumb plan, y'know," Laura couldn't resist saying.

Quinlan smiled. "I know."

"I hope it works."

"As do I." And he pressed his lips to her brow.


	13. XIII. A Relic of Human Existence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part of this chapter taking place at the forge is based on a deleted scene between Quinlan and Dutch. I enjoyed it so much that I just had to include a version of it in this story. Oh, and immediately after that, the rest of this chapter is taken up with some *moderately graphic adult content*. So, be warned. (About time, right?)

They loaded up in two vehicles. Fet, Quinlan, Eph, Laura, and Dutch rode in the van with the nuke, while Roman rode with Gus and his crew in the other. Night had fallen, yet the city streets were eerily quiet. Dutch peered through the window. "Where the hell are the strigs? We should've seen some by now."

"Something's not right," Eph muttered.

Laura's hands tightened on the assault rifle she was given by Roman only moments before they left the Federal Reserve, along with the briefest tutorial ever. "There's the safety. Here's how you reload. Just point and shoot." Didn't exactly inspire confidence.

The vehicles rolled to a stop at Lexington and 29th Street, judged a safe enough distance to wait with the bomb while Quinlan went ahead to confirm that the Master was still in his nest. Everyone got out of the vans, weapons ready, and gazed down the long street to the looming Empire State Building. Fet approached the half-strigoi. "Well, Born-o," he offered his hand, "Good hunting."

Surprised by the gesture, Quinlan grasped the ratcatcher's proffered hand. He then turned his gaze on the rest of the group. "Good luck," he focused on the bravely stoic Laura, "All of you."

She mustered a faint smile for him.

The Born turned away with a dramatic sweep of his longcoat and began his final march towards the building. One of Gus's men, a guy with an accent who went by the name of Marcus, remarked in admiration, "That one has quite a pair of balls."

"Actually, he doesn't," Dutch quipped.

"Actually, he _does_ ," Eph corrected her, his tone wry.

Fet gave him a surprised look. "How the hell d'you know that?"

"When he got shot up that night he beheaded Bolivar," he explained, "I was the one who removed all the bullets, if you remember."

"Right," Vasiliy's brow creased in thought, "I remember wondering why you bothered with that little modesty blanket you draped over him."

Dutch grinned. "So, the Born's packing, eh? Bloody shame we didn't know that sooner." She threw a wink at Laura.

Laura wasn't sure whether to ignore her or laugh. In the end, she opted for the former; if she started laughing now, she had a feeling it would rapidly degenerate into full blown hysteria.

There was a beep from the back of one of the vans. A light on the nuke's control panel switched on. "It's gone hot," Roman announced.

Fet spoke into his handheld radio, "What's goin' on, Born-o?"

Quinlan's response came a second later, _"I'm just entering the lobby. Looks like nobody's home. I'm going up."_

"Could be a boatload of munchers between you and the top floor," Vasiliy warned him.

_"Then it might take me a while."_

Laura sighed and leaned against the van. Nothing to do now but wait.

* * *

The elevator ride to the top floor was uneventful, which either meant the Master had abandoned his nest altogether, or he wanted to lull Quinlan into a false sense of security. Either way, the Born did not let his guard down.

The car stopped, the doors slid open with a ding. Quinlan warily stepped out into an empty room, sword in hand. The only visible sign of its earlier inhabitant was a pile of worm-infested soil. No coffin. No Master. The sound of footsteps drew Quinlan's attention to the top of the stairs which led to the observation deck. A teenaged girl in a maid's uniform appeared. At least, she used to be a teenaged girl.

"He's not here," her voice reverberated. She'd been given partial sentience, then.

"Where is he," Quinlan demanded.

The girl smirked. "You think I'm gonna tell you?"

Fet's voice crackled over the radio, _"Quinlan? What's goin' on? D'you hear me?"_

The girl tensed, eyes closed. When she opened them, the Master's red glow shined through. "Tell them, Invictus," the Ancient's voice rasped from the girl's throat, "Tell them how you have failed yet again."

Rage smoldered within him as Quinlan spoke into the handheld, "He's not here."

The exterminator sounded incredulous when he responded, _"Not here as in not on the top floor, or not in the building?"_

Quinlan refrained from rolling his eyes, just barely. Instead he growled, "Not in the building."

_"What do you want us to do, then?"_

He didn't answer right away. The strigoi maid was slowly descending the stairs. Her expression was haughty as the Master spoke through her, "Such a pity. You've wasted your existence with humans instead of taking your place beside me."

"And become a pawn like the boy?" Quinlan retorted.

"He's more of a son to me than you have ever been."

The Born almost laughed. What Laura said about the Master was true; he cared only about absolute control. And the fact that Quinlan, a creature of his own flesh, refused to be controlled was a constant source of vexation to the ancient vampire.

Faint growls heralded the arrival of a dozen strigoi. Quinlan sneered as they surrounded him. "Pathetic. Is this the best you can do?" he taunted, "Dispatching these vermin instead of having the courage to face me yourself?"

"Do you think I'm foolish enough to come within range of your bomb?" the Master growled.

Quinlan's bloodless lips peeled back in a grimace of hatred. "Understand this," he snarled, "Until you confront me, you will never have the security you crave. No matter how many humans you enslave or how many cities you hollow out, I shall never give up my pursuit of you."

The Master's proxy stared coolly at him as she descended the last few steps. "You'll have your confrontation," he promised, "But in a time and place of my choosing, not yours."

Quinlan angrily swung his sword and beheaded the girl as she laughed. He then spoke quickly into the radio, "He didn't take the bait. Leave now and get the bomb to safety."

_"What about you?"_ Fet asked.

Quinlan ignored the question. Instead, he readied himself as the strigoi moved to attack him.

* * *

Meanwhile, the others found themselves with a strigoi problem of their own. Hundreds of the creatures poured out onto the street, headed right for the humans.

"We gotta think about the weapon," Eph said, gun at the ready.

Fet agreed, "Yeah, both weapons." He glanced at Laura. "This ain't the time to make a final stand."

Gus, Roman, and the gang volunteered to give them cover. "They get their hands on the nuke," Gus declared, "it's game over."

Dutch, Eph, Laura, and Fet piled into the van with the nuke and sped off while the men who stayed behind began firing on the approaching mob. Even more strigoi came from the other direction to cut off their escape. Gus shot them down while Fet plowed the vehicle over the rest. And then they were speeding away, safe for the moment.

"You think Quinlan's alright?" Dutch wondered.

It was Laura who answered, "He'll make it." There was no room for doubt in her mind.

* * *

As the creatures surrounded him, Quinlan contemptuously tossed his sword aside and drew both micro uzis from under his coat. Within seconds the strigoi were mowed down by dozens of silver bullets. Quinlan waited in the aftermath to see if any others would make an appearance.

A familiar voice spoke behind and above him. "Invictus."

This time, he didn't stifle the urge to roll his eyes. "Are you really so afraid of me?" He turned to glare up at the red-eyed strigoi atop the stairs. "Anything you have to say, say it to my face, not through a proxy. But choose your words carefully," he warned, "because they'll be your last."

He gunned the creature down before the Master could respond.

* * *

The place Fet chose as the rendezvous was the construction site for Water Tunnel 3 on 9th Avenue. Big steel girders loomed nakedly over the lone van. Fet killed the engine, but left the headlights on. Everyone then grabbed a flashlight and stepped out to check for any unwanted guests.

Dutch let out a scream when her flashlight beam landed on Quinlan standing motionless before her. "Jesus! You scared the shit out of me! Why didn't you say anything?"

"Like what?"

"I dunno!" she sputtered, "Something like, 'Hey, I'm back and I'm just standing in the dark like a creepy vampire.'"

While Dutch gave her snarky diatribe, Laura rushed over and threw her arms around Quinlan. He returned her embrace without reservation, grateful that they were both still alive.

Fet located a switch for the lights and the oppressive darkness vanished to reveal the vast emptiness of the unfinished building.

"Did you find anything up there?" Eph asked the Born.

Quinlan reluctantly disengaged from his embrace with Laura, but maintained a grip on her hand. "The Master left nothing but a few stragglers to antagonize me."

"Told ya so," Laura muttered, only loud enough for Quinlan's keen ears to pick up. He cocked a hairless eyebrow at her.

"We got antagonized ourselves," Fet informed him, "We left Gus and his gang back there to fend 'em off."

"I don't see how we're going to get anywhere near him," Eph stated ruefully, "We don't even know if he's still in the city."

"He's still here." Quinlan was confident about that. The Master's ego would not allow him to fight them at a distance. He would want to gloat over their defeat in person.

Laura took in their rather exposed surroundings with some trepidation. "Um, no offense, Fet, but his place doesn't feel very safe."

"You want safe?" He grinned. "Follow me."

The warhead rested on a large wheeled cart, which made it pretty easy for them to unload from the van with the help of a ramp and then push it into the freight elevator Fet showed them to.

"Where are we going?" Dutch asked as they began their descent.

Vasiliy's smile broadened, splitting his unkempt beard. "This elevator is the sub-surface entrance to the New York City Water Tunnel Three."

Eph groaned in feigned annoyance, "Just when I thought I was never gonna get another New York City history lesson from this guy."

But Fet's enthusiasm could not be quashed. He related the tale of how the tunnel was meant to deliver water into the city from over sixty miles away. Built to replace two older tunnels, construction began in 1970 and was slated to finish in 2020. A 50 year project, brought to a sudden halt so close to its completion by Illumination Day.

The elevator rattled to a halt. Quinlan raised the gate for them to all step out into the damp tunnel. Equipment and supplies lay abandoned, lit by a row of lights set high up on the rough-hewn wall.

"We're over eight hundred feet down," Vasiliy continued in full tour guide mode, "Built by sand hogs, a family trade handed down through generations. Fathers and sons working side by side. Lifelong jobs to bring the city its water." He gazed at it all with loving awe. "People built this."

"Okay, that's a pretty good story," Eph admitted.

"And now it's a safe place for us to store our nuke," the ratcatcher declared, "till we figure out what to do next."

While Eph and Dutch helped Fet wheel the nuke out of the elevator, Quinlan began to explore their surroundings. Laura trailed along, from curiosity as well as a reluctance to leave the Born's side. It turned out they were in only one of the smaller utility tunnels. They soon came upon the main water tunnel; a vast man-made cavern that brought to mind ancient cave systems. Laura half expected to see stalagtites hanging down or thousands of bats clinging to the ceiling, but there was only black emptiness. And it all would have been filled with millions of gallons of water once completed. Laura was awed that human beings could create something this massive.

Beside her, Quinlan viewed the tunnel in thoughtful silence. Laura could tell he wasn't as awestruck as her, but something in his eyes told her his mind was racing. She wished the Ephemerol would wear off already so she could have some clue as to what he was thinking.

Heavy footsteps announced Fet's approach before his voice echoed from the distant walls. "The single greatest non-wartime construction project in the history of Western civilization," he mused, "Now I wonder if it's just gonna be a relic of human existence."

"I was thinking about the Ancients," Quinlan said without turning from the view, "and their underground chamber. When the first nuclear device went off, it destroyed them without destroying the city."

Fet blinked, "Since when do you care about the city?"

"I don't," the hybrid finally looked at him, "But you do." There was newfound resolve in Quinlan's voice when next he spoke. "If you want to save the city above us, and the world beyond it, then the time for half measures is over."

That's what Laura saw in his eyes when he looked out on the cavernous tunnel; inspiration. A plan had come to him all at once. One that he knew with complete certainty would succeed. So why the sudden dread in the pit of her stomach?

"I can see the end of it," a rare, hopeful smile graced Quinlan's severe features, "I can see victory." And then the smile faded. "But it will take everything we have."

"Everything?" Laura's voice sounded small and meek to her own ears.

Quinlan's gaze focused on her. He held nothing back, allowed her to see every emotion that now flooded his being. Elation and relief that his war with the Master would soon reach its end. His boundless love for her, his gratitude at having found each other. And his despair.

"Setrakian was right. To defeat the Master will require an act of self-sacrifice. As much as I wish it were possible," his voice resonated, "I cannot do this alone." His next words were for both humans before him. "I know you both well enough to know that when each of you commits to something, you're unwavering. But...I also know that this is much to ask. For this plan to succeed, one of you must be willing to give up your life as I am prepared to do."

He wanted it to be Fet. It was a selfish desire, but he wanted Laura to live on after him. But he also respected her right to make the choice: death with him, or life without him. Quinlan knew what he'd choose were their roles reversed, so he wasn't surprised when she spoke up first.

"I'm in."

They rejoined the others soon after. Dutch was checking something on the laptop that controlled the nuke, probably trying to figure out if she could operate it without Roman's help. She sighed and closed the computer. "I don't see a way ahead for us if Gus and the others don't make it here."

"I don't think we have a chance in hell of getting close to the Master again," Eph stated gloomily.

Vasiliy spoke up as he, Laura, and Quinlan rejoined them, "We won't have to. Quinlan's got a plan."

"Instead of bringing the weapon to the Master," Quinlan explained, "we bring him to the weapon."

The plan was simple: they lure the Master to them, Quinlan forces him into the freight elevator and down into the tunnel where the warhead will be, and then the bomb is detonated. The 800 feet of bedrock above the tunnel would keep the explosion contained and protect the city.

Dutch frowned as something occurred to her. "The remote detonator signal won't transmit through all that rock."

"That's why I'll be down there, too," Laura announced, to Dutch and Eph's shock, "My Scanner ability will be back by then, so either I'll use it to hold the Master, or Quinlan will keep him busy. Either way, one of us deals with him while the other sets off the nuke."

"And you both die." Dutch shook her head in dismay. "There's gotta be another way."

"There isn't," Quinlan stated with finality.

Fet added somberly, "The Professor said defeating the Master would take an act of self-sacrifice. We always knew not all of us was gonna make it through this."

The end was very near. They all felt it. The Master's desperation to find the warhead guaranteed they'd never get the chance to work out a different plan. It was this or nothing.

There wasn't much preparation involved. Fet got to work rigging small explosives to both elevator cables. The others simply waited.

Quinlan found Laura at the opening to the main water tunnel, apparently taking in the view. He moved to stand beside her. The two of them remained silent for a while, both content to just be in each other's presence. Then Laura spoke without taking her eyes off the vastness before them. "Thanks for not trying to talk me out of it."

"You accorded me the same respect," Quinlan pointed out.

"It's not easy," her chin trembled slightly, "I wish..."

"I know." He reached out to take her hand. Her fingers squeezed in response. "I have the same wish. That we had more moments like this together. That it hadn't taken so long for us to recognize what we feel for one another. We could have had such a beautiful life together."

"It's beautiful now." She leaned against him. "If this is all we ever get, I'm gonna be thankful. 'Cause it's more than most people ever have."

Quinlan closed his eyes, twisted around to wrap her in his arms, nose buried in her hair. The first embrace instigated by him instead of Laura. _It's not enough,_ he despaired. For so long he yearned for the end. And now that it was finally in sight, all he wanted to do was run from it. Take Laura to some distant part of the world beyond the Master's reach, and to hell with destiny.

"I want to live," he heard himself say, "I want a life, a _real_ life, with you."

Laura struggled to hold back a sob. "Don't talk like that. You're gonna make me cry. I'm tired of crying."

"I'm sorry." He gently disentangled himself from her and took a step back. "But I fear I'm about to make it worse."

A puzzled frown creased Laura's brow as he removed something from his pocket. It was the cameo pendant. "What're you—"

When Quinlan dropped to one knee, her eyes widened in comprehension and she gasped.

"It's not a ring," he stated plainly, "but it is all that I have. Will you accept it as you have always accepted me?"

He was wrong, Laura didn't cry. Her mouth widened in an overjoyed smile that threatened to split her face in two. "Yes."

More relieved than he would ever admit by her answer, Quinlan placed the pendant in her hand, then stood and drew her into a kiss.

* * *

The second van arrived shortly after Laura and Quinlan returned to the surface in the smaller elevator and Fet rigged its cable to blow as well. Gus and Roman were the only ones to exit the vehicle. The rest of the gang hadn't made it.

"Holy shit, you're alive!" Ephraim exclaimed as he and the others gathered around.

"Why were you so delayed?" Quinlan asked, back to his usual unsentimental bluntness.

Gus answered, "There's thousands of strigoi out there purging the whole city. They're killin' every human they can find."

The Master had reached a new level of desperation that bordered on panic if he was resorting to such extreme methods. Once the city was empty of every other human, he would be able to track the group by the sounds of their heartbeats.

Goodweather asked how close the strigs were.

"'Bout thirty blocks from here. So if we're gonna do something," Gus warned, "we better do it quick."

He and Roman were brought up to speed. On hearing the plan, the soldier suggested, "Y'know, our van's loaded with silver we took from the Federal Reserve. Maybe we can use it somehow."

Fet nodded. "Yeah, there's a working forge here at the site. We can melt the silver down and use it to line the inside of the big elevator to keep the Master inside. Sorta like that box we tried to put him in."

Quinlan volunteered for the job, his reasoning being that he had the most experience with forges. But truthfully, he just needed to keep himself occupied. It was hard for him to be idle. He wanted the Master to arrive, to get their final confrontation over with. And yet, he also didn't, because the longer his adversary kept them all waiting, the more time Quinlan had with Laura. He was greedy for it. Even for the moments they spent in silence. Just being near her was enough.

He took hold of the crucible's long handle and removed it from the gas powered forge, poured its molten contents into one of the molds sitting on a metal work table. It turned out that making steel panels was not an uncommon occurrence at this work site, to judge from the available stack of square molds. They worked just as well with silver as with steel.

Once he emptied the crucible, Quinlan held it out to Laura so that she could place another couple of ingots into the bowl. While he returned it to the forge, she checked on one of the earlier poured molds. The panel had cooled enough for her to lift the sheet of silver out with gloved hands and load it onto a dolly with the other finished panels. Pretty soon one of the others would come to take this load out to be mounted on the walls of the freight elevator.

"What d'you think will happen...after?" Laura suddenly asked.

"After what?" Quinlan responded, feigning distraction.

She frowned at him, not fooled for a moment. "After we die."

"You should not shy away from the word," he chided, "Death is not to be feared."

"I'm not afraid."

He looked at her.

Laura rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine. I _am_ afraid. I have no idea what's gonna happen, if anything does happen besides 'lights out.' I mean, doesn't it scare you even a little?"

Quinlan considered his words before he answered. "I've spent most of my life looking forward to the end," he confessed, "I don't expect it will be painless, but..." An almost wistful smile appeared on his pale lips. "To die, to be really dead...it must be glorious."

It was strange, but Laura found his words comforting. Maybe because he didn't claim to know any more than she did what might await them. Or maybe it was the sense of peace that emanated from him. Her telepathy was still weak, but it was returning and was strong enough to sense the familiar hum of his mind when she stood close to him.

Seeing the next batch was ready, Quinlan brought the crucible over and poured out the melted silver into the mold that Laura had just emptied.

"Those of us that do survive this battle will have much to look forward to," the Born mused aloud, "Rebuilding society. The vital role of repopulating the earth."

Laura snorted, "Don't let Dutch hear you say that."

"Why not?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Seriously? She spent three months in a forced breeding facility being treated like some kinda baby-making machine."

Quinlan pondered this. "Even so," he reasoned, "she might decide for herself. Motherhood is a most noble destiny."

"I get where you're coming from," Laura said, "But just because Dutch happens to have a uterus doesn't mean she's automatically cut out for motherhood. Not every woman is."

Quinlan realized she was probably thinking of her own mother while she said this. A woman who lacked the unconditional love that would have made her stay. "I suppose that's accurate."

After she placed more silver into the crucible, Laura admitted, "I wanted kids."

Quinlan didn't know why that revelation jarred him as much as it did. He pretended to focus on the silver melting in the forge.

"Never met the right guy, though," Laura added with a shrug, "I'm old-fashioned that way."

The half-strigoi pursed his lips. "That would not have been possible with me."

"I know," Laura smiled, "I always planned on adopting, anyway. Didn't wanna pass on my condition."

Quinlan thought of Sura, raising her from an infant to a happy little girl. Not of his flesh, but his child all the same. "I enjoyed being a father."

"I bet you were good at it."

A sad smile appeared on his face. "Tasa said I was."

Laura mused, "Maybe that's what your heaven will be. Reuniting with your family on the farm, like nothing bad ever happened to them."

The Born never gave much thought to an afterlife. He certainly didn't believe a creature like him deserved anything like heaven. But if he did, if some providence granted him that, he knew eternal happiness did not lie with Tasa and Sura. Once, perhaps. But not anymore.

"That would not be my heaven."

Laura frowned in confusion. "But they're your family. You love them."

"I do," he agreed as he stared intently at her, "But not as I love you."

Laura had no idea it was possible to feel joy and sorrow at the same time until that instant. "I don't want this to be it," she choked out.

Quinlan released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Neither do I."

She glanced at the stack of finished panels. "Think that's enough?"

"Yes." He shut down the forge almost absent-mindedly before he closed the distance between them. Laura rushed to meet him halfway, practically leaping into his arms. Her limbs coiled around his neck and waist while he swept them into a small out-of-the-way room that seemed to be used for storage. Laura slapped out a hand by the doorway and managed to connect with a lightswitch. A single naked bulb flared to life, providing just enough light to fill the room's narrow confines. There were some dusty crates stacked up at the back wall, a mostly empty shelf against the right. The rest of the room was bare.

After Quinlan kicked the door shut behind them, Laura relaxed her hold and let him set her down. She walked over to the shelf, smiled when she found some thick canvas tarps folded in a neat pile. She picked them up and spread them out on the floor, then reached for Quinlan's longcoat. He let her slip it from his shoulders and watched her spread it out over the tarps. She took a moment to scrutinize her handiwork. As makeshift beds went, it was good enough for their needs, she decided. Smiling, Laura approached the motionless half-strigoi. She reached for the zipper at the front of his vest and slowly pulled it down. Once the vest was open, Laura slid her hands under the fabric, moved them up over his shoulders, and pushed the vest off them so it slipped down his arms and dropped to the floor with a muted sound. Laura smiled and let her arms fall to her sides. "Your turn."

Quinlan stared at her, suddenly hesitant. In fact, he was downright nervous. He was not a virgin, by any means. As a gladiator, he was sought out by many noblewomen—and noble _men—_ who found his alienness perversely alluring. And later, when Tasa's love and trust in him outweighed the painful memories of her daughter's conception, Quinlan learned the joys of making love as opposed to mere sex. But that was all so long ago. He thought such desires had died with his wife. He might as well have been a virgin all over again.

"It's okay," Laura encouraged him, sensing his nervousness, "I promise to be gentle."

Quinlan smirked, his hesitation lessened. He reached for the front of her coat, deft fingers undoing the buttons, then pushing it off her so that it fell in a heap behind her.

Her turn now. Laura grasped the hem of his shirt and pulled upward. Quinlan obliged her by lifting his arms. Once the shirt was removed, Laura tossed it aside, her eyes riveted to Quinlan's lean, muscled torso. "Wow. You're..."

"What?" Quinlan felt a sudden urge to reach for the lightswitch behind him.

"It's just..." Laura raised her eyes to his, her smile full of the same awe and wonder as the moment they first met, "You're so beautiful."

Beautiful. No one ever used that word to describe him. Tasa said that he had a beautiful soul. Luisa called him beautiful only after she used stage makeup to conceal everything about him that wasn't human. The Born was not beautiful. He was grotesque.

Laura's smile faded, and he knew that she overheard his thought.

"I wish you could see yourself the way I do," she said, reaching up to cradle his face in her hands, "I wish somebody in your life told you how amazing and wonderful you are. You _are_ beautiful, and you're perfect, because you're you. I wouldn't change anything about you. Not one thing."

Her words brought a tightness to Quinlan's chest and throat. His stinger contracted painfully inside him while a strange blurriness came over his eyes. He blinked and felt twin trails of wetness roll down his cheeks. Gentle thumbs brushed the wetness away, then gentle lips met his. Quinlan's arms went around her while he deepened the kiss. He crushed Laura to him, mindful of her relatively frail human form. The coarse wool of her sweater made him impatient to feel more of her. He abruptly ended the kiss and released her from his embrace to yank the sweater off her.

Laura laughed when her head was momentarily stuck. They managed to disentangle her from the garment without ripping it and Quinlan flung it carelessly aside. Her undershirt soon followed, then her bra. Quinlan pulled her into his arms once more and almost moaned at the feel of her soft, cool flesh against his.

"God, you're so warm," Laura murmured. She snuggled into him, ran her hands over the smooth expanse of his back. Smooth, that is, until she encountered the whip scars further up. She frowned. "What—"

Quinlan cut her off with a kiss. The last thing he wanted at that moment was to dredge up the unpleasantness of history. He wanted to focus on now, with her, on what was very likely the last day of their lives. Without breaking their kiss, Quinlan picked Laura up and gently lowered her onto the makeshift nest of tarps and his coat. They fumbled out of the rest of their clothes, clumsy in their eagerness. Laura giggled as they kicked off their pants. "I'm guessing it's been a while for both of us."

Quinlan hesitated. It had been far more than a while since he last had sex. Centuries, in fact. It worried him that he might disappoint her.

A push to his shoulder jarred him from his apprehension. He blinked in surprise when Laura sat up and nudged him again. "Lie back," she ordered.

Puzzled, Quinlan obeyed. He gazed up at her as she leaned over him. Her lips met his in a brief kiss, then traveled along his jawline and down the column of his neck. His stinger purred when her soft lips explored the red swirls on his throat. Meanwhile, Laura ran her hands over his sculpted torso. The mottled stripes that adorned his face continued down his body. Laura's fingers traced their paths down his sides until they reached his hips, then she ran her fingertips over his washboard stomach, which tensed in response. She lifted her head to look at him. Quinlan's eyes were wide open, pupils blown until they eclipsed their natural paleness. His rapid breaths rushed from his parted lips. His body was so tense he practically vibrated.

With a grin, Laura bent down to take a nipple into her mouth while she flicked the other with her thumb. A loud groan escaped Quinlan, bringing a pleased chuckle from her. Her right hand quested farther down his body until her fingers wrapped around his straining erection. Quinlan gasped, his body shuddering. Then without warning, Laura slid down and took him into her mouth.

" _Ngh_...L-Laura!" It was all he could manage before he came embarrassingly quickly. Fortunately, Laura expected it. The semen that flooded her mouth was hot and had a strangely mild flavor she couldn't describe. She swallowed it all without any qualms. Enjoyed it, even, which wasn't her experience with previous lovers. When he began to soften, she gently released him from her mouth, placed a final kiss to the tip. She then crawled back up his body and lay her head against his heaving chest. "Now that we took the edge off, you should last longer," she declared with a satisfied grin.

Still foggy from the first orgasm he'd experienced in far too long, Quinlan huffed a quiet laugh and clumsily wrapped his arms around her. "At least one of us knows what they are doing."

Laura giggled, snuggled deeper into his embrace. Her hand slipped behind his left shoulder to feel the raised edge of one of his scars.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," her voice was sad.

"I barely thought of those scars over the centuries," Quinlan told her, "The ones who whipped me have long since turned to dust."

"I still hate that somebody hurt you."

He smiled and kissed the top of her head. "Yet, if they hadn't captured me, I never would have been found by Ancharia. I would have remained little more than a beast driven by instinct." He placed a finger under Laura's chin and tilted her head back to gaze into her soft gray eyes. "Everything that happened in my long existence has led me to this moment with you. And that is why I would change none of it."

Moved by his words, the only way Laura could respond was to kiss him. Their limbs coiled around each other as the kiss grew more intense. Soon Laura felt the evidence of Quinlan's swift recovery dig into her thigh. She moved a hand towards it, but Quinlan took hold of her wrist.

"No," he whispered against her lips. He gently pushed her onto her back, pressed her hands down to either side of her head. "It's my turn."

Laura smiled and left her hands where they were. Her smile didn't fade when she saw the fanged tips of his stinger peek from his mouth. She knew it wasn't deliberate, that the heightened excitement caused Quinlan's normally tightly held control to slip. The sight didn't frighten her. Laura knew he would never hurt her.

At first, Quinlan struggled with his wayward stinger, mortified by his loss of control. But when he looked at Laura, he saw the same bright smile that told him that he was loved and adored, that he was a man and not a creature. And so, instead of forcing his stinger to withdraw, Quinlan let it extend fully. He heard Laura's heart rate increase, but not from fear. She was excited— _aroused—_ and curious to find out what he would do. Quinlan had to admit, he was curious himself. In all his previous sexual encounters, he never brought any of his strigoi aspects into play. This was a new experience for both of them.

Cautiously, Quinlan brushed his stinger against her throat, keenly aware of the flow of blood just beneath the skin. Laura's racing pulse only served to enhance his own arousal. His erection throbbed almost painfully as he continued to slide his coiling stinger along Laura's responsive body. A deep pink flush appeared on her skin. Her nipples beaded when he coiled over and around her breasts. The farther down he traveled, the more rapid her breaths came. When he finally reached the nest of curls at the junction of her thighs, the scent of her nearly overcame what little self-control he still possessed. Quinlan somehow managed to force his stinger to withdraw so that he could taste her glistening center with his tongue.

A loud moan escaped Laura's open mouth. Her hands flew to the back of Quinlan's head, nails digging into his scalp while he continued to pleasure her.

"Oh, god... _omigod_..." she babbled incoherently. It was music to Quinlan's ears.

She tasted better than anything he knew. Better than cinnamon. Better than the healthiest B-positive blood. He could spend hours lapping up her heavenly nectar, but his cock was so agonizingly hard he couldn't wait any longer. And to judge from Laura's desperate pleas, neither could she.

With a final flick of his tongue to her clitoris, Quinlan rose and slid his body up the length of hers, skin against heated skin, hips cradled between slender legs. So close to their consummation, Quinlan was suddenly overcome by emotion. Not fear, but something far more profound. The realization that this act would put an end to the person he used to be and create someone new.

"Quinlan."

He gazed into Laura's eyes, saw the same depth of emotion that he felt, the same deep understanding that this was more than just making love.

"I love you," he whispered.

Laura smiled and touched his face. "I love you."

Then she reached down to guide him into her, gasped and arched her back as he drove his entire length into her in one smooth thrust. Quinlan's moan echoed wildly as his stinger rattled in his chest.

This was their heaven. They were together, complete. They were one.


	14. XIV. Self-Sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end is nigh, everybody. Just this chapter and then an epilogue after.

Gus and Roman stared at the stack of silver panels on the dolly, the cooling forge, and the abandoned crucible still full of half-melted silver. No sign of Laura or Quinlan anywhere.

"Think that's enough?" Gus asked, gesturing to the panels.

Roman shrugged, "Looks like."

There was a sound. It was faint, but unmistakeably human, and unmistakeably a moan. It was the second time the two men heard that noise since they arrived.

"So..." Roman began awkwardly, "D'you think they're—"

"I don't wanna know."

"Yeah, me neither."

They grabbed the loaded dolly and hurried out the door.

* * *

Laughing, breathless, Laura reached for Quinlan as he collapsed beside her on their makeshift pallet. She rested her head on his chest, hooked a leg over his. It was chilly in the storage room, but the Born's natural heat kept her from shivering despite the cooling sweat on her skin. She smiled when Quinlan's arms wrapped around her.

"This is the happiest I've ever been," she murmured, replete and deliciously tired.

Quinlan smiled, content for the first time in memory. He loved and was loved in return. This was all he ever wanted in the endless war of his life. More than he ever believed was possible. If he believed in any sort of gods, he'd send out a prayer of gratitude for bringing him and Laura together. But he stopped believing in gods long ago. Perhaps it was destiny. Whatever the reason, he was beyond thankful for the time he had with Laura, however brief. Because of her, he knew joy and tenderness, laughter and love. She had unlocked his humanity.

A light touch of fingertips on his skin brought Quinlan out of his reverie. Laura was tracing the many scars on his body, reminders of a long and violent life.

"You were shot." Her fingers touched the circular marks that dotted his torso.

"Over a year ago," Quinlan told her, "Goodweather and I had laid a trap for the Master. He came, but he brought along several heavily armed navy SEALs that he'd turned. They were armed with silver bullets."

Laura's brow furrowed for a moment. She touched a long gash at his side. "What about this one?"

"Most of these scars are from long ago, when I was young and inexperienced."

"From fighting strigs?"

Quinlan's smile broadened. "Gladiators. I spent years honing my skills in the Coliseum, fighting humans and beasts alike." He pointed to what appeared to be claw marks on his left arm. "Lion. And this," a jagged mark on his hip, "from a white tiger."

"Wow." Laura imagined him in an arena filled with roaring spectators, killing for their amusement. Her hand went to his cheek to trace the diagonal scar there. "What about this one?"

"My first gladiatorial fight." Quinlan's eyes had a faraway look. "I was pitted against the reigning champion at the time. The hero against the demon. I was expected to lose." There was a hint of smugness in his tone.

"You liked it," Laura stated, mildly surprised, "Being a gladiator, you liked it."

Quinlan looked at her, mindful of her reactions when he replied, "I took no pleasure in the killing, but...there was honesty in the Roman circus. All the false civility was cast aside to reveal their true natures. It was an excellent way for me to study humanity."

Laura chewed her lip in thought. Her expression was troubled, which worried Quinlan. Was she upset by his words? Did these revelations change her feelings for him? The way her eyes flicked to him told him that she picked up on at least some of his silent fretting. Her face relaxed into a reassuring smile. She rose up just enough to plant a soft kiss on his lips. "Relax. You didn't scare me off with your rough past."

"But it still bothers you."

"Not what you did. Just..." she sighed, "You keep talking about people—about humanity—like you're separate from us."

A puzzled frown creased the space between his hairless eyebrows. "I talk that way because I _am_ separate."

"But you're not," she quietly argued, "I mean, yeah, you're half strigoi, but you're also human. And you keep distancing yourself from everybody else, as if what happens to other people doesn't affect you and none of it matters. But it _does_ matter. You're human, Quinlan. What the Master's doing to the world, he's doing to your people. He's doing it to all of us. You're one of us."

Quinlan stared at her, astonished by her impassioned words. "You truly see me that way. As a human being."

She smiled tenderly. "I've always seen you that way," and then, as an afterthought, "Dummy."

He laughed at that. An actual laugh that startled him because it was so sudden and unexpected. And it made Laura laugh in turn, which delighted him. This certainly called for more kissing, at the very least.

Unfortunately, they were out of time. Quinlan heard approaching footsteps while Laura sensed the newcomer's discomfited thoughts. "Dutch," she muttered a second before the knock at the door.

"Hey, uh, guys?" the hacker's muffled voice reached them, "You in there?"

The couple shared a rueful look, then Quinlan stood and reached for his discarded black jeans while Laura covered herself with his coat. She sighed as the Born drew his pants up to conceal what she thought was a truly fantastic ass. Quinlan, of course, heard her sigh and thew a smirk back at her while he went to answer the door.

Dutch's eyes widened at the sight of the shirtless hybrid. "Um...I-I was just gonna let you know that everything's ready," she stammered a little, "Fet and Ephraim are heading out to lure the Master in."

"Thank you," Quinlan responded coolly, "We'll join the rest of you shortly."

"Okay—" Dutch barely got the word out before he abruptly shut the door in her face.

Quinlan turned around to see Laura already gathering her scattered clothes. He went to join her and the two of them dressed without a word spoken between them. Once they were both ready to step out into the real world, Quinlan paused, his hand on the doorknob.

"What is it?" Laura asked, sensing his hesitation.

He turned to face her. "We both realize that we will not survive this battle," he began, "But I want you to know that I will fight with everything I have against the Master, and not just to keep him in place until the warhead is detonated. I will be fighting for my life. For _our_ life."

Smiling, eyes glistening, Laura flung her arms around him and felt him return the embrace. "We're so lucky that we found each other," she murmured into his chest.

"We are." Quinlan breathed the scent of her hair, drew back to kiss her lips once more. They then separated with great reluctance and finally exited the storeroom.

* * *

Fet and Goodweather's baiting had paid off. The Master was on his way with a horde of strigoi at his back. As they awaited his arrival, everyone readied their weapons and reviewed the plan one last time.

"When the strigoi swarm this entrance," Quinlan pointed, "We must engage them without repelling, drawing them further into this passageway. That should limit their numbers as they pass through."

"We're ready," Gus assured him.

Quinlan nodded. "Good luck, gentlemen."

While the others hurried to take their positions, Ephraim stepped up to the Born with his hand outstretched. "Good luck."

Quinlan grasped the doctor's hand in his own. "May you see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rise from this abyss." And with those parting words, he left to wait for his moment in concealment.

Laura witnessed their interaction from a distance, as well as Fet and Dutch's emotional embrace by the small elevator, and Gus and Roman's nervous banter near the parked vehicles. Everybody's thoughts were filled with fear, determination, regret, and resolve. Nobody wanted to die, but they were prepared to in order to save the rest of humanity from this plague. Laura was proud to be among them.

She checked her weapons. Quinlan had given her his micro uzis, saying he wouldn't be using them and she'd have better luck getting a kill shot with multiple rounds. Laura was just glad to have something else of his. A touch at the base of her throat assured her that the pendant Quinlan gave her still hung safely around her neck, looped through a tightly knotted shoestring and tucked beneath her sweater. Its presence helped her gather her courage more than the guns ever would.

A familiar grating buzz came over her, the mental noise becoming so loud that it threatened to drown out everyone else's thoughts. "They're coming."

Roman and Gus gunned down the first dozen or so strigs, which brought even more running towards them. The two men ran deeper into the building, and as they hoped, the enraged strigoi gave chase. Fet, Eph, Dutch, and Laura began shooting as soon as the creatures got close enough. The plan to bottleneck the horde in the narrow passage worked. Not enough of the strigs could squeeze through to overwhelm the humans. As long as the ammo held out, a stalemate was maintained. Shoot and fall back, shoot, retreat, until they reached the place where the elevators waited.

Gus tossed a hand grenade and Fet the last silver grenade to thin out the enemy's numbers a bit. When the smoke and silver dust cleared, the Master could be seen standing further back in the crowd. Zack was with him, holding an assault rifle and looking like he wished he was anywhere else but here.

The shooting continued. Strigoi bodies dropped, white blood and worms sprayed over the ground. Then the Master stepped forward, unwittingly placing himself just in front of the open freight elevator. The wattles at his throat began to pulsate obscenely. A strange high-pitched screech filled the air. It felt as if the sound pierced the humans' brains. They doubled over, crying out in pain.

That was the moment Quinlan ran out from his hiding place. With a roar, he cannoned into the unprepared Master, knocking them both into the freight elevator. Unfortunately for Zack, he was close enough to get knocked into the elevator as well. The boy lay on the floor, stunned, while Quinlan pinned the Master down and shoved the Ancient's face against one of the silver panels that lined the walls. The Master shrieked as his flesh burned and he fought to throw the Born off. It was all Quinlan could do to hold him in place.

With the piercing screech gone, the others were able to continue fighting off the strigs. Fet and Laura ran over to shut the freight elevator. Fet took a precious few seconds to grab Zack by the ankles and drag him out, leaving the kid's weapon behind. The gate slammed shut, Fet pushed the button on the remote he'd rigged earlier, which set off the charge. The cable blew and the elevator plummeted down the shaft.

"Zack!" Ephraim rushed to the unconscious boy's side, checked his pulse. He sighed in relief.

Fet turned to Laura, "You gotta go." His eyes were sad.

Laura nodded. She put down her weapons (they'd only get in the way now), reached into her coat pocket, and pulled out an identical detonator to release the smaller elevator. As she was about to step into the cage, a mongrel came barreling through the gunfire and slammed into her. Laura screamed as she fell, her fingers reflexively tightened on the detonator, and she felt the button depress. "NO!"

The charge went off, the cable severed, and Laura watched in horror as the empty elevator fell.

* * *

Eight hundred feet below, two powerful beings collided in deadly battle. Nothing was held back. They struck and clawed, flung each other into walls with enough force to crush masonry, kicked and bit like rabid animals. They were evenly matched in strength and viciousness, which meant they both bore as many terrible wounds as they inflicted.

The side of Quinlan's head bled from several deep claw marks. He also wheezed thanks to the broken ribs he sustained when the Master flung him up to the ceiling and sent him crashing to the floor. Meanwhile, the Master struggled to remain upright with a shattered right knee and his left arm was hampered by a broken clavicle. Both were starting to tire. They stumbled, their punches sloppy. It wouldn't be much longer before one of them made a fatal mistake.

Where was Laura? Why hadn't she detonated the bomb or scanned the Master? Quinlan prayed she wasn't incapacitated. He wished he had his sword, but it was lost somewhere, probably still in the elevator. He could have won this fight with his sword.

The fifth time the Master struck him down, Quinlan knew he was losing. When he no longer had the strength to lift his arms, he knew it was over. He was going to die.

The Master grabbed the front of his coat to drag him closer. "I brought you into this world, Invictus," the Ancient snarled, "Now you will leave it, my ill-begotten son."

Some last shred of defiance gave him the strength to lash out and tear the Master's oversized wattles from his throat. Quinlan staggered back from the Master's slackened grip. He fell against the nearest wall and slid to the floor. He took some satisfaction in seeing the look of shock on the Master's face as white and writhing worms gushed from the massive wound.

The Master pressed a shaking hand to his torn throat. "What have you done?" he gurgled.

The exhausted Born smiled. "I've won."

* * *

Laura felt the mongrel pulled off of her, heard Fet and Ephraim struggle with it, but she couldn't look away from the dark maw of the elevator shaft. Quinlan was fighting the Master down there, alone. Maybe he'd win and set off the nuke, maybe he'd lose. Either way, he was going to die without her beside him. He was alone because she failed him. She failed everyone.

"No," she sobbed. And then the rage set in. Rage at the stupid, random twist of fate that ruined Quinlan's plan, that kept her separated from him when they should have been together at the end. She leapt to her feet with a furious yell and spun to face the creature responsible.

Fet was about to try and behead the mongrel with Setrakian's sword cane when the creature started to convulse.

"What the hell is it doing?" Eph exclaimed, aiming his gun.

Fet's eyes widened. "Laura."

The last time they saw the Scanner in action, her face was eerily calm. But now...now she screamed in anguish and rage, while the mongrel writhed and oozed white from its nose and ears. And then something _really_ weird happened.

"Guys!" Dutch called out, "Something's happening with the strigs!"

The two men looked around and saw that all of the strigoi had stopped fighting. They just stood where they were, swaying a little, their expressions vacant.

"Either the Master's dead," Dutch speculated, "or..."

"Or he's taking a new host," Ephraim finished solemnly.

Fet shook his head. "No," he looked at Laura, "I think somethin' else is happening."

* * *

Nothing held her back. Not shame. Not fear. Now there was only her hatred driving her. She tore into the mongrel's primitive, buzzing mind and just kept going. There was something at the core of it. Something she'd sensed before in the last strigoi she scanned, but shied away from. It was the connection that every one of these creatures shared with the Master. The key to their hive mind. Because the strigoi weren't individuals; they were pieces of a whole, extensions of the Master's will. His limbs.

_The power of the Beast resides not within itself, but within its limbs._

Laura followed the winding connection all the way to its source. And there he was, as malevolent and powerful as she remembered. But Laura was done being afraid of him. The Master's mind was strong enough to project his thoughts and even make people see and hear things that weren't real, but as he and Laura both soon discovered, he was no Scanner.

* * *

"Bastard," the Master hissed at the beaten Quinlan, "Born of my flesh, but not my soul." He raised a heavy foot to cave in the Born's skull. "An abomination!"

Before Quinlan could resign himself to the inevitable, he saw the Master suddenly reel back, his body convulsing as if in the midst of an epileptic fit. The Born knew what this was, though he had no idea how it was possible. Laura was nowhere in sight.

The Master fell to his knees, his screams turned to rasping gurgles from his torn throat. He fought against the invasion of his mind, but he was losing. The Scanner ripped through all his defenses like a razor through flesh, flayed and exposed his deepest thoughts to her relentless probing. The Master didn't realize it, but the terrifying sensation of losing his core self was not unlike what his victims experienced when the worms had their way with them.

While the Master fought his internal battle, Quinlan struggled to his feet. He needed to get to the nuke.

"Quin-lan..."

He froze at the eerily familiar voice. When he looked towards the Master, his mouth fell open in shock. Laura's gray eyes stared at him from the Master's face. Her distorted voice hissed from the creature's bloodless lips, "I have him."

Slowly, the Master's controlled body stood, favoring the damaged leg. "I'm going to set off the bomb. So you need to run."

Those words jarred Quinlan out of his astonishment. "I cannot run. I must see this through to the end."

A shudder ran through the Ancient's body. When Laura's voice spoke again, it sounded weaker. "Go. Just...go. Please."

"Laura, I..." he hesitated, "I'm not certain that I _can_ run." Everything hurt. He was bruised and broken, so tired he could hardly stand.

Her eyes gazed into his. "You have to try."

Quinlan never believed it was possible for him to live past the final confrontation with his hated father. But if there was even the slightest chance of living beyond this moment, of having more time with Laura, he wasn't going to throw away the opportunity. "I'll try."

The Master's lips formed a smile that was so strangely reminiscent of Laura's. Then the Master's possessed body lurched towards the nuclear warhead. Quinlan turned away and began to run. At first he wasn't able to do more than human speed. He had to push through the pain and weariness, focus his will. By the time he reached the cavernous main tunnel, Quinlan was a blur.

* * *

Something bizarre happened with the strigs. A suggestion was planted in their simple minds, thanks to Laura's access to their telepathic network. All throughout New York, any humans who managed to survive the purge suddenly found themselves ignored. Because when the strigoi looked at them, they saw their own kind. When the strigs looked at each other, however, they saw prey.

From the humans' perspective, it just looked like the creatures all went insane and started attacking each other.

Fet, Eph, and the others gaped as the strigs ripped each other to pieces. Worms, white, and body parts flew. Stingers were torn from throats. Corpses littered the ground.

"What the fuck is goin' on?" Gus blurted.

"I have him."

The startled group spun to face Laura. Gone was her earlier torment. Her expression was calm now, although her pupils were contracted to pinpoints. The mongrel she was scanning no longer convulsed; it _vibrated_ with tension, veins popping through its thick skin—literally, in some cases. So much white leaked from its body the creature looked like it was doused in paint. It was a wonder the thing continued to stand upright.

"Have who?" Fet asked. He and the others gathered around the Scanner, but she didn't react.

"D'you think she means the Master?" Dutch wondered.

Before anyone else could speculate, Laura spoke again, "I'm going to set off the bomb. So you need to run."

"She's right," Roman said, "A blast that strong is gonna bring this whole building down. We need to clear out."

"But what about Laura?" Dutch protested, "We can't just leave her here."

A shudder ran through Laura's body. "Go," she said, sounding weaker, "Just...go. Please."

Eph spoke up, "If we move her, we might break whatever hold she has on the Master."

"Maybe," Fet's jaw was set in determination, "But I'd rather risk it than leave her to die."

Laura's sightless eyes gazed at the ratcatcher. "You have to try."

"Glad you agree." He tucked the cane sword into his belt and scooped the smaller woman into his arms. Ephraim picked up his still unconscious son. The rest of the group kept their guns out as they ran through the brawling strigs, dodging worm-filled puddles as they went.

Left behind, the mongrel finally collapsed. Its head cracked open like a rotten melon against the hard concrete floor and half-dead worms spilled out in a weakly writhing mass that fell still seconds later.

* * *

The Master's body was wracked with tremors as Laura forced him to shamble towards the waiting bomb. He was still aware, still fighting her every step of the way. He knew what was coming—of course he did—and for the first time in all the millennia of his existence, he was terrified. Laura had no sympathy.

_**You brought this all on yourself.** _

There was a small black box attached to he warhead with a key sticking out of it and a toggle switch below. Roman had rigged it as a way to detonate the nuke without the need for arming codes. Laura maneuvered a taloned hand to reach out and turn the key. A red light glowed to signal the warhead was armed.

_**NO!**_ The Master thrashed against Laura's mental hold. He started to back away from the nuke, but Laura focused the last of her energy into causing the Master's arm to lash out. His hand slapped against the toggle—

* * *

Laura screamed just as the ground began to shake. Fet struggled to stay on his feet without dropping her. The others swayed and stumbled as well until the tremors ended, sudden as they began.

"Was that the nuke?" Gus asked.

"Is it over?" a hopeful Dutch spoke.

A loud groan drew everyone's attention to the place they vacated several blocks behind them; even Zack, who woke in his dad's arms while they were all running. They watched in awe as the unfinished building collapsed like a house of cards.

"Holy shit, Laura," Vasiliy whispered, "You did it." He looked down at the woman in his arms and gasped in horror. "Doc!"

Goodweather set his son on his feet and rushed to the Ukranian's side. Fet knelt to gently lay Laura on the ground so that Eph could examine her. Her eyes were open and sightless. Blood leaked from her nose and ears. As Ephraim checked her vitals, she started to convulse.

"What's wrong with her?" a worried Roman asked.

Ephraim shook his head, his face grim. "She's showing signs of extreme cerebral trauma."

Laura's convulsions worsened for a terrible moment, then she stilled. And somehow, the stillness was so much worse. But when Goodweather checked her pulse, he found it, weak and thready, but still alive.

"You can help her, right?" Fet's blue eyes pleaded, "Gus's place has all those medical supplies."

"I wouldn't even know where to start," Eph confessed, voice heavy with regret, "I'm not a neurologist. Even if we could get her to a hospital..."

A mournful silence fell. They'd lost Quinlan, and now they were losing Laura. Even though none of them had expected to survive the final battle against the Master, it didn't make this moment any less painful.

Zack stared at the dying woman and thought about his mother. His _real_ mother. He knew she was dead long before his father stabbed the creature she became. He'd always known. The way she acted, the cold way she regarded human life, the hateful things she said about his father. As angry and hurt as Kelly Goodweather had been by Ephraim's many flaws, she never spoke negatively about him to her son. Never tried to alienate Zack from him. The Master possessed her memories, could summon a specter that looked and sounded like her, but it wasn't her. The reason Zack clung so tightly to the illusion was because it was all he had left of her.

He was truthful when he shouted to his father that he was trying to save his life. As angry as Zack still was at him, he never wanted Ephraim dead. But months spent with the Master convinced the boy that the ancient creature was unbeatable. The Master had reshaped the world as he saw fit in just a few months, after all. How could anyone hope to fight something so powerful? The only way to survive was to obey, to keep acting like the Master's loyal pet and do whatever he wanted.

Zack didn't think it was possible for the Master to ever be defeated. But he was wrong. His dad, this handful of people, and the woman lying on the ground made it possible. The Master was destroyed, and now all Zack had left was his guilt.

"Dad."

Ephraim looked up at his son from where he knelt. No longer a tool of the Master, the boy was just a boy again. Sad, alone, and deeply remorseful.

"I'm sorry, Dad," he said in a small voice.

Eph rose to his feet and went to his son, pulled him into a tight embrace. "I'm sorry, too, Zack. For so many things."

A sound made all of the adults tense and bring their weapons to bear. The city was still full of strigoi, after all, and who knew if they were still only fighting each other.

"Don't shoot." The voice was rough, exhausted, but still recognizable. There was a collective gasp as everyone lowered their guns. Quinlan stepped into the weak light of the remaining functional street lamps. He looked as rundown as he'd sounded, covered in grime and fresh wounds, his clothes tattered in places, sword missing.

"How the hell did you make it outta there?" Roman exclaimed.

The Born's reply was a terse, "I ran."

"The Master?" an anxious Vasiliy asked.

"Dead," Quinlan heaved a sigh of finality, "I sensed it. I felt him go. It's over."

"Thank god," Dutch breathed.

Quinlan frowned as he noted someone's absence from the group. "Where is Laura?"

He felt a sense of dread at their sober expressions. Then he saw the motionless form lying on the ground at Vasiliy's feet. Quinlan shoved the others out of his way and dropped to his knees beside Laura's motionless form. He gently scooped her into his arms to cradle against his chest.

"Laura," his trembling fingers touched her cheek. There was no reaction, no movement of her blindly staring eyes. Her heartbeat was a weak flutter that his keen ears barely heard.

_No. It was supposed to be me._

Something was wrong with his eyes. Everything blurred. He blinked and felt the wetness trail down his cheeks, cutting tracks through the grime. It was the first time he'd openly wept since his family died.

"Laura," Quinlan buried his face in her hair as he whispered hoarsely, _"Meus amor. Non est vivere nec sine te."_

My beloved. There is no life without you.

None of the others spoke. What could they say? All of them experienced enough loss to understand how meaningless words of sympathy were. The fact that the stoic, emotionally distant Quinlan was now falling apart before their eyes made this tragedy all the more gut-wrenching.

After a few moments, Quinlan raised his head and spoke in a deceptively calm voice, despite the tears that continued to stain his cheeks, "I need a weapon."

After a moment's hesitation, Gus handed him a Glock. "Only two rounds left."

"Two is all that is needed."

Dutch choked back a sob. Fet pulled her into a hug, his expression mournful. Gus and Roman were already walking away; none of them needed to witness this.

Ephraim gently tugged his son away. "C'mon, Zack. This is something private." He kept his arm around the subdued teen as they began to put some distance between them and the Born with his dying love.

"Can't you do anything for her, Dad?" Zack asked, though his face showed that he already knew the answer.

"I wish I could," the doctor sadly replied, "But in her condition, even with a fully equipped hospital, it'd take a mir—" His eyes widened, a hand flew to the zipped pocket of his coat. The pocket was intended to carry a cellphone, but Eph had something far more precious concealed inside.

"Oh, shit." He spun around and ran back. "Quinlan, wait!"

The Born's gaze was apathetic, but he lowered the gun. Ephraim skidded to a halt, fumbling at the zipped pocket. The others paused in their retreat to watch in puzzlement as Eph brought out a small bottle with an eyedropper in its cap. "I forgot all about this," the doctor explained, "Me and Dutch cooked this up for Setrakian, but by the time we got back..."

Dutch gasped in recognition, "The white!"

Quinlan froze, his eyes alight with sudden, desperate hope. "The alchemists' formula. The Professor still had it?"

"What is it?" asked Gus.

"The professor had a way to extract the healing properties from strigoi worms without passing on the virus," Eph said, "Apparently, the stuff is a miracle cure for just about anything."

"Like what the Master gave me to cure my asthma?" Zack asked.

Ephraim nodded. "Exactly."

He drew a small amount of the cloudy liquid into the dropper. "Instructions said one drop in each eye."

Quinlan held Laura's head steady while Goodweather carefully squeezed a single drop into one open eye, then the other. Eph then replaced the cap on the bottle and stepped back.

At first, nothing changed. Laura continued to lay motionless in Quinlan's arms. Just when everyone feared the white had failed, her entire body tensed, back arched until only her heels and the crown of her head touched the ground. Her mouth gaped, but no sound emerged. Instead, everyone clutched their heads as a mental scream pierced their minds for an agonizing instant. Then Laura fell limp, blood lightly rimming her closed eyes.

For one horrifying moment, Quinlan did not even hear her heartbeat. Then Laura gasped and her blood-rimmed eyes popped open, as if waking from a nightmare. Quinlan's was the first face she saw, tear-stained and shining with such relief. Laura smiled at him, that same smile she had when they first met, a smile that said he was amazing and wonderful and beautiful.

"Hi."

Quinlan laughed as another tear slipped down his cheek. "Hello."


	15. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is. The end of the tale. This has been my favorite story that I've written so far and I have to admit that I'm sad that it's over. Thank you all for reading.

Excerpt from _The Night Eternal: A Chronicle of the War Against the Strigoi and the Destruction of the Master_ , by Vasiliy Fet:

(Editor's note: Names in brackets [ ] have been replaced with aliases by those who requested to remain anonymous.)

_Somehow, someway, [Laura and Quinlan] detonated the warhead beneath the bedrock of the city, and the Master was no more._

_There were still millions of strigoi world wide, but without the Master's central intelligence they were dumb, hungry munchers, easily slain._

_Five years later, the atmosphere is healing. Six, sometimes seven hours of sunlight and growing. The strigoi are all but eradicated now. The interim government decided to keep a few munchers on lockdown inside the same Biosafety Level 4 facility as smallpox and other hemorrhagic viruses. Because what could go wrong?_

_Roman followed through on his plan to go back to the Federal Reserve and emerged as one of Manhattan's biggest property owners. A driving force in the city's renewal._

_Gus declined to partner with Roman, instead setting off into the countryside to help the hundreds of thousands of refugees return to their homes. Hoping one day to cross paths with a certain young woman he once knew._

_And Dutch, she went to work with a bunch of ex-hackers to get the internet back on its feet. As I'm writing this, she's already sent and received the first few emails._

_[Ephraim and Zack] opened a free clinic for the many sick and wounded people who'd been too afraid to go to the Freedom Centers for help. [Zack] is learning everything he can from his dad, hoping to make at least some amends for the things he did while living under the Master's influence by dedicating his life to healing people._

_As for [Laura and Quinlan], no one has seen them since the final battle. In all likelihood, neither of them survived the final confrontation with the Master. But there have been some rumors of a strange couple traveling from place to place, liberating isolated feed lots and hunting down any of the Master's collaborators that tried to go to ground. I'd like to believe there's some truth to those stories._

_No monument exists at the blast site. No plaque. Up until this book was published, only a handful of us knew what really happened. Not a day goes by that we don't remember those no longer with us. Those who made the ultimate sacrifice._

_The Master used the bonds of human love as a conduit for the strain. He tried to destroy us, but he never really understood it: love. And in the end, it was love that saved us all and gave us the world—our world—back._

* * *

Laura smiled, then flipped the pages back to the dedication at the beginning.

_In loving memory of professor Abraham Setrakian._

_And to Born-o and his lady, my favorite odd couple._

_The world owes you more than it can every know or repay. Thank you._

She shut the book with a quiet laugh and placed it on the end table beside her chair. She then rose from her seat and went to the huge bay window that made her fall in love with this house when they found it. While she gazed out the window, her fingers absently toyed with the pendant that hung from her neck, the shoelace replaced with a much nicer gold chain. Outside was a riot of green. The return of the sun brought the return of the seasons. No more perpetual winter.

A lone figure crouched amid the rows of the vegetable garden that took up most of the front yard, pulling weeds. His features were mostly hidden beneath the hood and dark glasses he always wore outside, but there was still no mistaking the glimpses of unearthly pale skin.

As if sensing his audience, Quinlan sat back on his heels and met Laura's gaze through the window. A ready smile came to his lips, warm and loving, free of the somberness he'd carried for so long. Laura smiled back and then turned away from the window to reach the front door, stepping out into the mild afternoon just as a low rumble heralded the approach of the school bus. The large yellow vehicle rolled to a halt with a hiss of its brakes. Its door slid open and a little five-year-old boy with a backpack as big as himself hopped out and made a dash for Quinlan as he rose to his feet.

"Daddy! Lookit what I made!" A sheet of paper flapped in the child's hand.

Quinlan scooped the excited boy up in his arms. "Show us."

Laura came up beside them as the child proudly displayed his work: a riotous scene in sloppily applied watercolors. Scrawled in the lower right corner in blocky letters was the artist's name: ABE.

Quinlan chose the name for him. After the Master's defeat, many of the collaborators who operated the feed lots either released all the prisoners or simply locked everything down and walked away, leaving the people inside to die of starvation. It was in one of the latter that Quinlan and Laura found the newly orphaned baby, clutched in his dead mother's arms. She had kept her child alive by continuing to breastfeed him, which meant that starvation overcame her that much faster. Laura had sensed the infant's faint thoughts, otherwise he would have been missed altogether, too weak to even cry. There were no other relatives to claim the child, and after weeks of caring for him Laura and Quinlan couldn't bear to part with him. So they and the other survivors of the liberated feed lot settled in a nearby town that had been emptied out by the strigoi a year ago. They've lived there ever since. The grateful townspeople were more than happy to provide Quinlan with all the blood he needed to live on, as well as ensure his and Laura's privacy from the rest of the world.

Over the next few years, as the sunlight began to return, Quinlan proved that he was indeed a very good farmer. And Laura was proven right in her belief that he was a wonderful father. No child was ever more loved or treasured as their son, and the boy thrived as a result.

"That's home," a tiny finger stabbed enthusiastically at the paper, showing a brown rectangle with a green triangle roof and blue square windows. Beside that image were two human-ish figures. "And that's you an' Mommy!"

Laura bit her lip to hold back a laugh. Abe's interpretation of the Born had him looking like a skinny snowman. She sensed Quinlan's amusement as well, though he was better at hiding it.

"It is a very good likeness," Quinlan somehow declared without a hint of irony.

Laura took the picture from the child's grip. "I know just where to hang this masterpiece."

"The fridge?" the ginning child asked.

"Yep." She leaned in to peck Abe's cheek, then shared a slightly longer kiss with her husband.

The little boy's face scrunched up. "Eew!"

Quinlan chuckled at Abe's feigned disgust. The corners of his eyes crinkled, bringing the crow's feet into stark relief against his bone-white skin.

Those crow's feet hadn't existed five years ago, and they weren't the only small but visible changes he and Laura discovered in recent months. It wasn't because he was more open with his emotions, smiling and laughing more often. And it wasn't because of the returning sunlight and his prolonged time spent outside with his vegetables and his wheat fields. Something happened to Quinlan after the Master's demise. Something that he couldn't explain or really understand, but felt the truth of it all the same. After two thousand years of existence, Quinlan was starting to age.

* * *

Laura woke one morning to find Quinlan standing in front of the full length mirror on their bathroom door, staring intently at his reflection. Something about his thoughts brought a frown of concern to her face. "What is it?" she asked, still a bit drowsy.

Quinlan glanced at her in the reflection, then turned around to look at her directly. His expression was...strange. Then he said in a flat monotone, "I'm dying."

"W-What?" That certainly woke her up the rest of the way. Laura threw the blankets aside and got out of bed, hurried over to him. "What're you saying?"

He turned his head in profile, touched the outer corner of his eye with his fingertips. "Look."

It took her a moment to understand what he was showing her. "Those tiny wrinkles?"

"They were never there before. They shouldn't be there now. And there's something more," he paused as if searching for the words, "I feel...different."

Laura pushed down the anxiety she could feel coming over her. "Different how? Are you...Are you sick?"

"No." Something amazing happened then; he smiled. A wide, joyous smile that made the newly discovered wrinkles crease the corners of his eyes, as well as revealed others that started to form on his cheeks. "I'm mortal."

She felt his certainty. He wasn't just guessing; he _knew_.

"Ancharia told me that my existence was entwined with the Master's," Quinlan said, "That mine would end with his. It was prophesied."

"But it was wrong," Laura declared.

Quinlan shook his head, still smiling. "The prophesy came true. I simply misinterpreted it. My existence did end with the Master's demise. Now," he stepped closer to wrap his arms around Laura's waist, gazing down into her gray eyes, "Now I live."

It was his last great fear, that he would be forced to watch his family age and fade while he remained untouched by time. But now, by some miracle, that sad future was no longer his. Quinlan would grow old alongside his wife, and eventually die as human beings were intended to. It was all he'd ever wanted. And far more than he ever dared hope for.

Laura's own smile lit up to show that she understood what this meant for him. For both of them. She flung her arms around him and laughed as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to their bed.

* * *

The little family made their way down the path to their house, Abraham chattering all the way as he filled in his parents on the adventures of kindergarten. Laura smiled contentedly, her mind filled with Quinlan's warm hum and their son's effervescent delight.

Five years and some months ago, she met an extraordinary being as lonely and strange as herself. She had no idea how things would turn out, no expectations of even surviving the events that followed. But she knew right from the start that Quinlan was the person she was meant to spend the rest of her life with. And it looked like it was going to be a long and happy life. For both of them.


End file.
